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fiddelerselbow wrote:I thought SunnO))) was a joke for a long time to be honest. I like how it's something totally out of left-field (for me at least) but the whole robes thing and the aesthetic is just too silly for me to take them seriously. I'd like to see em live though.

GardenoftheDead wrote:The thing is I never thought the robes and the fog and the "cosmogony" was supposed to be something serious. It's just part of the image.

What about the final track on "Black One," the band's breakout 2005 album, for which one guest vocalist, the legendary "suicidal metal" recluse known only as Malefic, supposedly recorded his vocals while sealed inside a coffin? This, finally, prompted Anderson to smile.

"That was about capturing a certain kind of claustrophobic, isolated tone. There was actually a hearse parked outside the studio — a Cadillac hearse, painted purple — that belonged to the studio owner. So, we're like, well of course we have to put the coffin in the hearse! So we actually put contact mikes inside the hearse, and inside the coffin and on top of it, and shut the lid. Malefic's a tall, lanky guy, and he didn't really fit inside too well. Eventually he started feeling claustrophobic, and that's how we got the tone we wanted. There are outtakes of him knocking on the lid, saying: 'O.K., I'm done! Let me out!' " Might that not qualify as tongue-in-cheek? I asked. "Tone first," Anderson said, holding up a finger. "What this group's about is tone." He watched me closely for a moment, then his smile suddenly widened. "I love metal," he said, as if confessing a closely guarded secret.

Stephen O'Malley, the other half of Sunn0))), explained things to me in a slightly different way. "We're really serious about what we do, and I think it's completely honest, but a part of that honesty is the fact that Greg and I have a good sense of humor about the whole thing. We're having fun with these clichés and stereotypes of metal.

Southern Lord Recordings had no particular ideology or purpose at the beginning, other than to advance the cause of music that its founders made or liked — but there was no question, ultimately, what genre of music that would be. "I like heavy music," Anderson told me simply. "That's where I come from." When I asked O'Malley to explain the label's name, he looked down at his fingers with something verging on embarrassment. "You know that Slayer album from the 80's?" he mumbled. "'South of Heaven?"' I was beginning to understand. "I see," I said. "So, then, Southern Lord would be another name for—" "That's right," O'Malley said quickly, clearly grateful that I hadn't made him spell it out.

Bassus Sanguinis wrote::wha?:
dudes, You're missing the point in all the robed priests of the monoliths thing.

Willing suspension of disbelief. Try it. Like in the movies or when reading.

D.o.S. wrote:

What about the final track on "Black One," the band's breakout 2005 album, for which one guest vocalist, the legendary "suicidal metal" recluse known only as Malefic, supposedly recorded his vocals while sealed inside a coffin? This, finally, prompted Anderson to smile.
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