BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition - December 2019

theatre
dance multimedia music
N O 9 SUNN O))
Life Metal
Southern Lord
Sunn O))) have always been a band
that’s existed in multitudes. For
nearly two decades, the prolific experimental
metal band from Seattle
have depended on the magnitude of
a single tone, of a single note, to do
the heavy-lifting of scaffolding the
thematic complexity of a track.
The songs on the band’s eighth
studio album, Life Metal, unfold
glacially, where the apex of rising
action arrives at the speed of a
slow-moving hurricane, unreachable,
but vividly identifiable in the distance.
It’s this devotion to embodying an unwavering
and immovable foundation
that’s made their work ripe for collaboration,
and on Life Metal they’ve
enlisted the help of an all-star cast
of collaborators like Silkworm’s Tim
Midyett and T.O.S. Nieuwenhuizen.
On album opener, “Between
Sleipnir’s Breaths” Icelandic composer
and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir,
provides vocals— tight, breathy, and
firm—that unfurl prehistoric Aztec
poems. Elsewhere, miscorophic
and unmistakable chimes appear
fleetingly in the opening notes of
“Troubled Air,” before rose-toned
organs float to the top of an immaculate
drone.
It’s evidence of their ability to
balance seismic power with a
remarkable ear for levity. In moments
like this, moments where they wrap
a dense environment in a sliver of
delicacy, they display a different articulation
of force; this time through
unaltered vulnerability, rather than
the magnitude of noise.
They’ve cited Alice Coltrane as
influence, which offers an easy
throughline to decipher why bearing
witness to Life Metal feels almost
doctrinal in nature; something akin to
an opaque pilgrimage that examines
space, speed, and time as a powerful
discursive tool.
Melissa Vincent
N O 10 BILLIE EILISH
When We All Fall Asleep,
Where Do We Go?
Darkroom/Interscope
When Billie Eilish debuted, we were
met with a blonde, blue-eyed teen
songstress who looked like an angel
in gangster clothing. Since then, her
sound has gotten darker and more
defined, and both the critics and the
masses can’t seem to get enough.
In the follow-up to 2017’s Don’t
Smile At Me EP, Eilish shows off the
range in her voice and musical influences
with her first album When We
All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?—a
somber pop effort with ballads, bass,
trap and electronic beats.
During the week of August 24,
2019 the single “bad guy” hit the
#1 spot on the charts, ending the
19-week streak of Lil Nas X’s “Old
Town Road.” This also made Eilish
the first artist born in the 2000s
to top the Billboard Hot 100. Other
standout tracks include “when the
party’s over,” “bury a friend,” and “my
strange addiction.”
In a rarity for pop music in 2019,
all of Eilish’s songs are written and
produced by herself and her brother
Finneas O’Connell. The pair have
since transcended their Soundcloud
roots to incorporate acoustic
elements into their music: ominous
vocal processing, field recordings,
synths, whispers and close breathiness
trigger an almost sensory
(ASMR) experience. Eilish is toughtalking
but soft sung, delivering
nightmarish lyrics floating on dreamy
harmonies.
Early in her career, Eilish has
realized a balance between critical
and commercial success, a dream
for any artist. Enough has been said
about her youthful edge but she truly
channels the digital zeitgeist with
this album. As she takes us deeper
into the shadowy expanse of her
mind, her star will surely only burn
brighter.
Aurora Zboch
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DECEMBER 2019 BEATROUTE 25