Sunn O))) is the drone metal project of guitarists Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, founded in 1998 as a homage to the slow, distorted guitar drones of Earth. The name comes from Sunn, the amplifier brand Earth had used, and the band still builds its sound from walls of vintage valve amplifiers, which Anderson has called the third member of the group. Riffs are slowed until they stop behaving like riffs and turn into pressure, density and resonance felt in the body.
Concerts are staged as rituals: performers in hooded robes, thick smoke, long improvised passages before any voice appears, often that of the Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar. Around the core duo a rotating cast has gathered, from Boris and Ulver to Scott Walker. Records such as White1 (2003), Black One (2005) and Monoliths & Dimensions (2009), all on Anderson’s label Southern Lord, carried the sound from metal clubs into art galleries and contemporary music festivals.