SUNNO))) - 00 Void (re-issue) (Daymare Recordings/Southern Lord) 2.14.08 Keith Boyd
It’s the Black Hole Sun for real this time. No longer a simple slogan shouted from the tongues of half crazed street anarchists, this DOOM and CRACKING has become manifest. Great fissures appear at the corners of your vision. Terrible Avatars materialize on the altar and spew forth a plague of wasps and locusts. Reversals of all types erupt spontaneously. Men become Women. Day becomes Night. And over the top of it all riding these foul and eldritch winds comes the relentless chiming of the dreaded riff. As Julian Cope once said about the sound of SunnO))), “Don’t blame the messenger!”
Although 00 Void was technically their second release, SUNNO))) allowed several different labels to release versions of it and hence it overlapped with many of their other discs in terms of a timeline. In terms of artistic expression however the album represents a major leap forward. After the worthy “Grimrobe Demos” and “Flight of the Behemoth” SUNNO))) had mined their line about being, “An Earth tribute band” to death. On 00 Void they kept the doomy, down tuned riff sweeping but added significant layering and texture. Some of this was due to the use of samples the rest however was the result of the chiming overtones invoked by multiple tone sweeps being deployed simultaneously. 00 Void is the sound of Leviathan rising from the deeps. It is the ominous peeling off of a blackened layer from the ash after a star burns out. And yet while it seems almost inevitable that this sound should put the listener into the mindset of all things dark and Chthonic, there is another space within filled with blissful, hypnotic light. The wonderful new cover art by Stephen Kasner gives us a clue to this inner spirituality. The front is a vision of countless dots of light which towards the center become almost blinding. Stare at it for awhile and you’ll find yourself thinking of angels and astral voyages. Check it out while listening at maximum volume and you’ll find a hidden realm where Pandit Pran Nath gives heavenly tambor lessons to an assembly of past and present saints of sound. You’ll see La Monte Young throat singing with Terry Riley and Karlheinz Stockhausen giving Black Sabbath a free Helicopter ride. In a frenzy of synaethesia you’ll feel the sound of a river. You’ll taste brighter colors. You’ll swoon people, you’ll swoon.
This special Daymare Recordings edition (from the land of all things groovy and good; Japan) comes with a second dose of strangeness. It’s a remix, collaboration between SunnO))) and Nurse with Wound’s Steven Stapleton. The brilliant re-titling of this disc is, “The Iron Soul of Nothing” and believe me it lives up to that. Being the contrarian that he is Stapleton takes the buzzing jaws of 00 Void and tamps them down into a more compressed form. He lets this cauldron of bees simmer and over, under and around it adds some “musique concrete”. There are breaking glasses, popping lightbulbs and slamming doors that dance in and out of focus, sometimes with alarming surprise and other times just out of reach.
Should you rush to the nearest computer and order this monster? Yes and yes. While you’re at it you can order the special Daymare versions of EVERY LAST DAMMNED ONE OF SUNNO)))’S RECORDS!! Each one comes with new cover art, a killer heavy-duty cardboard sleeve and disc of extras somehow related to the original. This kind of embarrassment of riches is rare in an industry that usually prides itself on just how much they can rip you off.