REVIEW: sunn O))) 2/5/23

HIGHLAND PARK - On February 5, I went to see sunn O))) play at the Lodge Room. They were fantastic: an amazing performance that I really didn’t expect to like as much as I did. If you ever have the chance to see them live, I highly recommend them. Here’s why. 

I was homeschooled for six years on a hobby farm on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, and a lot of that time was spent in the woods. Nothing extremely special, but a lot of tree climbing, fire making, fort building, and the like. The woods are full of life! Call me Spencer David Thoreau, but every square inch of it is occupied by a plant trying to eek some sunlight and nutrients out from the crowd to keep on growing. As a result, all of the energy from the sun is sucked up by the plants, and everything is going everywhere at once trying to get its share.

Right before sunset, I had been in the desert for the weekend camping with my lovely girlfriend, Ariella (DJ Pumpkin, to some). We had camped on BLM land a mile off the road, and after leaving the trunk open all night, we realized that a light had been on and the battery was dead. On the mile trek back to the main road to flag down someone for a jump, I realized just how energetic the desert really is. It's so still - nothing darting around, no layers of biota, and certainly no need for competition for sunlight. But with all of that sunlight pouring into the area and just a loose ground covering shrubs, where does the rest of that photon energy go? It doesn’t go anywhere, it just hangs in the air. Forests may be productive because they convert all of that energy to biomass, but deserts have far more free-floating energy that isn’t getting used at all.

That is what a sunn O))) performance feels like. I walked into the room just after they started, and the whole room was shaking. Guitarists Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson stood on stage surrounded by smoke moving around at glacial speeds. My initial thought was “oh boy, what have I gotten myself into.” However, as I slunk through the sold-out crowd to the left edge, I noticed people leaning on the wall to feel it vibrate. Everyone had their eyes closed and would react in unison to the next chord hit. For almost two hours, the two moved around on stage hitting wall after wall of the loudest, deepest bubbles of sound and then simply letting them ring out for the crowd. They didn’t try and take the crowd along for some ride, and they didn’t try to use the preceding chord to build the next. They just created energy and then let it fizzed out into the room. 

Sunn played for two hours and I was captivated the entire time and far more than I would by any Boy Pablo-esque indie rock outfit. I believe it’s because the latter tries to suck up all the energy from the room and string the audience along with them. Sunn, on the other hand, emanates energy and lets the crowd sit in it with them. Compared to a forest, the desert is still and empty. So why do people love it so deeply? If you want to know, see sunn O))) the next time they’re in town.

Yours truly,
DJ Sqouija

Recommended If You Like: Sleep, Earth, Boris, OM
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