I first found out about the band Earth while watching the Nick Bloomfield documentary Curt and Courtney about the death of Curt Cobain and the possible role his harpy of a wife played in his demise. Carlson was a friend of Cobain’s, and he also carries the dubious honor of being the guy who provided Curt with the gun Curt used to kill himself. To be fair, the gun was meant for Cobain’s protection, but seeing the interviews with Carlson in the film, I got the impression that this guy wasn’t too upset about the way things turned out. Of course, Carlson also looks like he was so loaded on heroin that anything resembling actual remorse seemed well outside of his capabilities.
After reading some reviews of Carlson’s band, I went out and bought the first Earth album I could find. They were described as a droning, ultra-heavy, guitar based outfit that dropped the conventions of songwriting for a more exploratory and experimental style. The album I got, Pentastar: in the Style of Demons, wasn’t exactly the monstrously heavy epic I was expecting, but it was an intriguingly appealing album nonetheless. Had I wanted to find the quintessential doom metal release, I would have been better off with Earth 2, widely regarded as their masterpiece.
During the initial phase of Earth’s life, little comes of their union with Sub pop records. They piss off almost everyone, go through about ten members, abuse various substances, and basically go into hiding. But eventually a small and slow growing number of people begin to take note of Earth, not the least of which, two guys who will go on to start a band that picks up the aesthetics of Earth 2 and expands them to their most brutal and punishing conclusion: Sunn O))). Greg Anderson (Goatsnake) and Stephen O’Malley (Khanate) share, among other things, a deep love for Earth. They decide to form a band that operates as a sort of tribute and a revival of the epic drones of Earth at their heaviest. They choose the name Sunn O))) after the amplifiers which are so brilliantly huge in tone, and as a reference to Earth (sun and earth, get it?).
My first Sunn O))) album is titled Flight of the Behemoth and goddamn, it is huge. A couple of the tracks are mixed by the Japanese master of noise terror, Merzbow. With no tracks under about six minutes and the average song length at just about ten minutes, you can bet that FOTB is not an easy listen. But if you give this album its due, it rewards in spades. The super distorted droning chords ring out and pulse through your brain until you are in a virtual trance for the duration of the album. Though little of the comfortable signposts of catchy music reside in FOTB, there is enveloping warmth that oozes from every ugly pore of this album. I highly recommend it for the more adventurous and patient listeners.
Sunn O)))’s latest release, titled Altar, a collaboration between them and the equally amazing Japanese doom band Boris, is an entirely different animal. While the immense, dirge-like drones are present, the strength of this album lies in the diversity of the sounds contained within. Joining Sunn O))) and Boris are a number of guests including Kim Thayill (Soundgarden), Joe Preston (Earth, Thrones, the Melvins), and the man himself, Dylan Carlson. It really is an amazing album, and if I didn’t have to quit the world and wipe baby ass I would tell you more about it. Suffice to say that I really love this album and you should buy it. I’ll put some on the Napcast this week, along with some Earth.
Happy week everyone. Until this baby thing calms down, color me useless.
Kill me now.
Wait how could you have missed Earth 2 when it first came out? I think Tom Carter, Scott Grimm, and I were playing it like totally all the time.
I love Earth 2, and I love Sunn 0))). The really nice thing about Sunn 0))) is that they basically took the Earth 2 album and expanded on it in a bunch of different directions, exploring everything that could be done with the basic concept. It’s rare to find a band that you like that’s essentially stylistically based on a single album. Kind of like how Luna’s entire career was based on the Velvet Underground’s third album.
Not sure about Tom, but when I played Scott my Pentastar disc around the time we were working on the Alison Effect, he had never heard of Earth. I missed them, by the way, because I was so far out of the loop those days. Hell, still am.
I have been looking for the Boris/Sunno))) album..I guess I’ll order it online today..been hearing so much about it, it’s like the Universe is demanding that I buy it.
Jmiller, the universe IS demanding it. The universe has heard that you don’t have it yet, and is screaming “BUY IT YOU HIDEOUS BITCHSLUG!!!”
The Universe can be so on the money yet so fuckin’ rude sometimes you know?
Earth 2 = Good. Thanks for the Sunn O))) post.
One of the interesting things to me about the Sunn/Boris collaboration was Atsuo’s drumming. The loud and slow aesthetic poses a substantial challenge for drummers because drumming is inherently quantized, i.e., we can’t really sustain.
Atsuo tried to get around this in a variety of ways. On the first track he goes for broke with a big Bonham-style solo, which didn’t work very well because he’s not a very good soloist, and it just comes off as flailing. For most of the rest of the record he’s in the background, which works a lot better but is not exactly a ton of fun. Certainly not as much fun as the evil wailing guitars.
Playing the drums in a band like this is a problem. Nobody’s really worked out how to do it yet, and the genre itself seems to work against drummers. It’s interesting to see the different things people try.
OK I found a copy at Soundwaves, I bought it, as well as a copy of Marcus Miller’s “Silver Rain”, and a 12ft surfboard.
Doom metal drumming is generally redundant since the music is often so slow as to render a rhythmic beat pointless. Besides, much drone is weakened by a beat anyway. Then again, I think Dale Crover has pulled off a pretty fantastic way of drumming to the dredging slow stuff.
John,
I’ve thought that at times as well. It would make me sad to think that drummers have no place in doom metal, but really I wonder if the genre doesn’t work better without them.
Love it, love it, love it! Gawdamn this is a cool album. It really transports you. I like the drums, I think it is a great drum sound imo. It’s like a call and response drum battle..but there is no response…dig it.
Gonna get heavy rotation. Thanks for the heads up.
I think it’d be cool if they just took the drums, kept them low and bassy in the mix, and then heaped an assload of reverb and delay on them so they became less about the beat and about percussion, and more about rhythmic psychedelic sound effect… but that’s just me. I think EVERYTHING sounds better with an assload of reverb and delay on it.