SUNN O)))
KANNON (SOUTHERN LORD)
Composed in the aftershadow of SUNN O)))'s most recent successes in immersive collaboration (the group worked with Scott Walker on Soused, Ulver onTerrestrials in 2013 and 2014) and also from the broad and influential wake of their epitomic Monoliths & Dimensions, Kannon emerged both independently as a conceptual entity and with roots in the legacies of those projects, yet was fully realised years later, in 2015.
The album consists of three pieces of a triadic whole:Kannon 1, 2 and 3. The album celebrates many SUNN O))) traditions; Kannon was recorded and mixed with SUNN O)))'s close colleague and co-producer Randall Dunn in Seattle, in Studio Litho, Aleph and Avast!; and the LP includes performances by long term allies and collaborators Attila Csihar, Oren Ambarchi, Rex Ritter, and Steve Moore to name a few.
At the core, the composition centres around the dynamic and intense guitar and bass interplay of SUNN O)))'s founders: Stephen O'Malley & Greg Anderson.
It is possibly the most figurative album SUNN O))) has created, which is unusual as they usually dwell in layers of abstraction and subjectivity.
On the other hand the album is the most outright "metal" in years, drawing personal associations and memories of cherished albums like Panzerfaust and Twilight of the Godsagain to the forefront of consciousness.
Kannon is also very close to the cyclical character of mantra which the band has evolved into as a living creature, the enormity of intense sensate detail and manifestation of the live in concert element of SUNN O))), the organism that has flourished, metamorphosed and transcended tremendously over the past ten years.