Sunn O))) Announce New Self-Titled Album: Hear “Glory Black”

Slow down. Turn the lights off. Light a candle. The long-running black-robed Seattle experimental drone duo Sunn O))) are ready to drop a new album, and you can’t possibly hope to absorb their music while you’re running around attending to the responsibilities of your day. You need to get yourself into a different mindframe. That’s the only way this works.

Last year, Sunn O))) signed to their hometown label Sub Pop and released the deep-immersion 12″ EP Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise The Chalice & Reverential. Today, Sunn O))) announce their new self-titled album, which is set to come out this spring. It’s Sunn O)))’s first studio LP since 2019’s Pyroclasts.

Longtime collaborators Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson recorded Sunn O))) with Brad Wood, who usually produces music that’s slightly more accessible than this. Wood’s studio, which has big windows looking out on trees, was apparently important for getting O’Malley and Anderson in the right space to make this music. The band got permission to use Mark Rothko’s paintings in their album art, and British writer Robert Macfarlane did the liner notes. But O’Malley and Anderson recorded all the instruments on the LP themselves, without outside collaborators.

In a press release, Anderson says, “What’s been happening with our performances over the last couple years with the two of us and no other collaborators or players has been really fresh and exciting. There’s been a lot of development. A lot of that was unexpected. And a lot of things that happened in the studio were really exciting and different from what we had been playing live, as well.” You can hear that in the 10-minute album closer “Glory Black,” which is starts with slow, evocative guitar riffage before turning into Erik Satie-style piano minimalism and then back again. Below, check out “Glory Black” and the Sunn O))) tracklist.