I was looking forward to attending a SunnO))) gig for the past three years now. Last Sunday I got the opportunity to see them again as they were the closing act for the Transmediale festival in Berlin and they did not disappoint me. In fact, SunnO))) is the single best live act who has ever walked the Earth (see what I did there?).
But first things first, as I was pretty late for the gig I missed the opening band but let’s be honest, I attended a drone doom concert and was not in the mood to hear/feel anything else.
The SunnO))) stage looked as always. The huge backline of amplifiers, just as the musicians, in their typical monk robes and the crowd itself, were completely embedded in exposured fog. When it comes to SunnO))) the performance is very important and always raises the tone of the ensemble.
Talking about the music, it was, as usual, very diffcult to distinguish different songs and I would rather describe SunnO)))’s act as a 3 segmented ritualistic performance. The first half hour consisted of instrumental, extremely loud drone feedbacks coupled with hypnotic oscillating pulsing riffs. At some point during these 30 minutes the band nearly managed to create something which could be defined as a toting percussive feel.
The transition to the second part was kind of surprising. Attila Csihar entered the stage and boosted the ritualistic performance to a new level. The atmospheric sound images eclipsed and supported Atilla’s vocal performance from the background while he was crying, mumbling, whispering and roaring like a dying man in pain. During his last prayers the whole band joined him to evoke an insane arrhythmic noise-apocalypse.
At first I wasn’t sure if the middle part would fit into the performance but after I witnessed the extreme discrepant and dissonant atmospheric last segment, I am pretty sure that it worked that well because of the middle part. The ending of the performance outshined everything heard before.
SunnO))) are able to create an atmosphere and soundscapes which slowly turn my body and mind in some kind of hypnotic state which leaves me unable to control myself. At the end I was completely dazed by this overwhelming, destructive beauty.
(Pictures were taken from here)