“It’s similar because it’s same kind of level of extremity for me,” Csihar says. “Mayhem is of course very intense musically, and it’s really intense live shows, but also Sunn O))) is really intense in terms of volume and vibration and the whole experiment. All those conditions on the stage, it sucks up your energy but it’s also kind of breathtaking. I have this position in the centre with the speakers in the background and everything, and I just love it. It’s almost like out of the body experience. All your cells are shaking and it’s completely extreme.”
While Csihar equates the two bands in terms of extremity, Sunn O)))’s experimental drone metal is a stark contrast to Mayhem’s fiercely aggressive black metal. “Compared to Mayhem the music is totally different,” he says. “It’s no drums, it’s very monumental and slow. Of course, it would be impossible not to play slow music, because it’s the mass. You just can’t move around mountains. But it’s so monumental, it’s so big, and at the same time it’s experimental. It’s all actually about adoring the sound itself.”
American musicians Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson formed Sunn O))) in the late-1990s. The name comes from the Sunn brand of amplifiers, and their stylistic identity was directly inspired by drone metal progenitors Earth. As time’s gone by, however, they’ve become harder to categorise – branching out into experimental orchestration and dark ambience, and collaborating with the likes of Scott Walker and Ulver.
“It’s metal, but it’s more experimental music,” Csihar says. “Sometimes it reminds me of Indian ragas. You know, when they play these like long forms and repeating and the circulation of the tone and the sound. That’s what happening. When we play a long drone, it’s like a waterfall of sound.”
Sonic waterfall is an apt description for the immense volume that typifies a Sunn O))) performance. Though, as dazzling as their performances are, they can also be a test of endurance.
“It’s evolved into this through the years. They had less when they started and now it’s grown,” Csihar says. “You could put more [volume], but there’s a certain limit of how much you need for the experiment, because the point is that you don’t want to hurt the people. Some people might feel hurt by the volume, but if you have some earplugs then you can enjoy it. The point is your whole body responds to the music. It goes through your body – the whole resonance that we all create together, in a way we are all united in this sound wave. To feel this resonance is important.
“It’s kind of psychedelic and it’s extreme. It’s pushing the boundaries and it’s pushing your senses as well and expanding your hearing somehow; you hear with your whole body. Some people at some shows they came with sleeping bags. Not kidding. They were laying down, just spaced out in the sound.”
Csihar first teamed up with Sunn O))) on 2004’s White2 LP, reciting elements of the ancient Hindu textBhāgavata Purāṇa. He then began touring with them, and made a major impression with his underworld operatic vocals on 2009’s Monoliths & Dimensions. However, although he’s remained a fixture of the live band, he didn’t sing on another Sunn O))) LP until last year’s Kannon. Kannon isn’t an easygoing listen, but in terms of instrumentation and personnel it’s the most minimal of the recent Sunn O))) albums. It’s also relatively brief – comprising just three pieces of music across 33 minutes.
“We definitely wanted to do something different,” Csihar says. “All the Sunn albums are kind of different. I mean look at the album with Scott Walker [Soused, 2014] or the collaboration with Ulver [Terrestrials, 2014]. Monoliths & Dimensions is maybe one of the most successful albums to date. When you have a successful record it creates a bit more expectations, and this took some time actually to find what we feel most honest and comfortable with, because [Monoliths & Dimensions] was really honest. But that’s seven years ago and we’ve been playing more and more shows. The vibe of the band in live shows is getting more and more concentrated. It seems like we are having a better time than ever actually. It’s still work, sometimes you really have to focus, but we enjoy it so much.
“Monoliths & Dimensions is great, but it’s hard to reproduce live in some parts, because there was so many fantastic musicians involved and there were so many beautiful instruments around. Somehow Sunn is not only about that. Sunn is really about rawness – it’s about the cavemen, it’s about the primal sound. It’s an animal, is what it is. It’s more like instinct and all those things come more alive as we play on stage.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
