Live Review : Sunn O))) + Anna Von Hausswolff @ The Albert Hall, Manchester on October 27th 2019

Anna von Hausswolff is the personification of effortless cool. She alludes such arty coolness that she makes everyone else in room seem like gorky teenagers with haircuts courtesy of their mums. She and her band of equally hip dudes started slowly and ethereally. There is no typical drums or bass here and the solitary ghostly notes meander their way across the majestic setting of Manchester’s Albert Hall. This fragile alluring music, is designed to suck you in and embrace you in its intoxicating melodies. There are traces of Portishead and the spector of P.J. Harvey looms large over the whole set, but there is also something deliciously original about this minimalistic hybrid of goth and post-rock. The set feels like a journey, as each song steps up the momentum but also plunges you further into their musical rabbit hole. Her voice jolts from so slight that it is barely there, to filling the whole auditorium. The music they produce is beautiful but it also has an edge to it. It isn’t safe, whilst it is mystical (and in places whimsical) it also make it very clear it has the power to rip your arm off.  

Sunn O))) live are a very unique and very special proposition. It is music and performance art pushed to its very limits and whilst it may on the outside seem impenetrable, it is actually a highly emotive and moving experience. Tonight we get an instrumental set as vocalist and “shadow” member Attila is busy in his day job fronting Norwegian Black Metal legends Mayhem. Therefore with no vocals to cling to, we are exposed to an even more immersive and all-consuming performance. Sunn O))) spend the entire show encased in black shrouds and are hidden from view by plumes of billowing black smoke. For two hours it spews out of the machines stage left and right, filling the room with thick black haze, reducing any visual connection with the band to snatched glances of shadowy figure. With any ordinary band you would see this as swizz, but as I have stated Sunn O))) are no ordinary band. 

You don’t just hear their music, you feel it. It creeps across the floor towards you as a low rumbling tidal wave of noise. It takes an age to reach you and when it does it is slowly enters your body though your toes and then verberates up your spine and nestles in your brain. Over the course of a hundred and twenty minutes, they release less than thirty cords. Each one is gradually and meticulously brought to life and then held for minutes, letting every inch of it breathe. It is low, mournful and heavy. Those notes just hang there in the air pulsating with dark maliciousness. It is so hypnotic and transient, you become trapped in these barely fluctuating waves of noise, which like aural acupuncture consume your body. It’s a meditative experience for the disturbed mind.  

From the outside, Sunn O))) sound like they produce an indistinguishable wall of sound, but once you are inside it, you notice the nuances and the ever changing frequencies. A haunting organ accompanies the low vibrating guitar for a good proportion of the set and a sombre sole trumpet adds further variation to the sound. But in the end Sunn O))) are about the guitar and the guttural sorrowful tones that they wring out of them. The term sonic temple is over used (and miss-appropriated) but tonight it describes perfectly what occurred. Sunn O))) built towering structures in sound, primal and organic but still utterly beautiful and as one, we stood there transfixed and gobsmacked. Just utterly incredible.