News : Sunn O))) and Magma appearing at Adelaide Festival in 2016

Sunn O))) (photo credit: Peter Hönneman)

For the drone fans out there, Seattle’s oddly typed Sunn O))) (simply pronounced ‘Sun’) will be coming to Adelaide with French avant-garde outfit, Magma, in March, 2016 for a co-headline festival at Thebarton Theatre for the Adelaide Festival.

For 18 years, Sunn O))) (pronounced Sun) have challenged the way we think about music. The group’s apocalyptic, mind-altering and reverberating walls of noise are a truly matchless experience; a reverent salute to the gods of metal. Sunn O)))’s live shows are notorious for their extreme volume and striking theatrics of hooded robes and thick fog. Loud is an understatement. The band’s bone-rattling, low-end frequencies are sensorial experiences, equal parts concert, ritual and happening. This is like nothing you’ve heard before.

Since their formation in Los Angeles in 1998 and the release of their début The Grimmrobe Demos in 1999, core members Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson have forged connections between the worlds of metal, drone, contemporary composition, jazz and minimalism. A truly international act, the current line-up consists of O’Malley (Paris), Anderson (LA) Attila Csihar (Budapest), Tos Nieuwenhuizen (Amsterdam) and the band’s essential FOH engineer Chris Fullard (Brisbane-born, London-based). O’Malley and Csihar return to the Adelaide Festival after their acclaimed performances at Tectonics Adelaide in 2014.

‘…like a giant, maleficent “om” offered up to the gods of amplification…mesmeric and involving.’ – The Observer

‘…patient, painstaking music, assembled with the care of craftsmen and the bravery of a high-wire act.’ – Evening Standard

‘This is music from a time before time, presided over by the throat-singing, whispering, cajoling and screaming of a Devil in torment. This is the sound of glaciers melting, of universes forming, of the war between Heaven and Hell.’ – Freq

Sunn O)))’s special guests, appearing for the first time in Australia, are cosmic, genre-defying visionaries Magma. Shrouded in mythology and inspired by music greats from jazzman John Coltrane to classical composers Wagner, Stravinsky and Bach, Magma resist conventional categorisation.

The astronomical music juggernaut, led by founder, composer and virtuosic drummer Christian Vander, has released a string of epic concept albums detailing the plight of refugees fleeing a doomed Earth to settle on the planet Kobaia. Their lyrics are sung in the language of the new civilisation, Kobaian, which has developed its own music genre Zeuhl (meaning celestial). Since forming in Paris in 1969 the band has gone on to release 25 albums, garnering fans in Paul McCartney, Johnny Rotten, Metallica’s Robert Trujillo and legendary director Alejandro Jodorowsky. With hypnotic tension, explosive climaxes, powerhouse drumming, and intricate vocal arrangements, this is music for the whole body; a transcendental experience connecting performer and listener. Get ready for a mind-blowing, boundary-pushing space opera from another galaxy.

‘After four decades, there is still nothing in rock, prog or otherwise like Magma. At least in this world.’ – Rolling Stone

‘The mind all too easily spirals into a string of hyperbolic comparisons, imagining Focus composing for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, or Yamantaka//Sonic Titan if they jammed with BadBadNotGood for four decades, or Berg’s Wozzeck as interpreted by John Coltrane and performed by the Mothers of Invention’ – Exclaim 

‘…an enveloping, consuming, transformative flotation tank of sound.’ – Louder Than War

‘This is a beyond-this-world-and-time music that contains a human and relatable fragility.’ – The Quietus

Sunn O))) and Magma
Thebarton Theatre, 112 Henley Beach Rd, Torrensville

Sat 12 March 8pm (Doors 7pm) 

$70 – adelaidefestival.com.au or Ticketmaster 136 100 

3 hours 30 minutes (including interval)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxKReSWbnZU

Related Posts

• 

  HJELVIK – Welcome to Hel
• 

  AC/DC – Power Up
• 

  Depravity – Grand Malevolence
• 

  Pioneering Aussie metal drummer Matt ‘Skitz’ announces 2021 national tour.