Digital Symphonies #4 - Transcending Oblivion - An Alice Coltrane vs Sunn O))) Soundclash

Born on August 27, 1937, Alice Coltrane (née Alice McLeod) grew up in a musical household, her mother was a member of the choir at her Baptist church and her half brother was a jazz bassist. She learnt to play the piano from an early age - afterwards she started playing the organ in her mother’s church and working with professional jazz groups.

It was while touring with one of these groups when Alice met and later married John Coltrane. Alice soon started working as pianist with John’s group. Their growing spirituality and joint love of music, resulted in some of John's most creative efforts ( John releasing ‘A love supreme’ in this period). During this marriage Coltrane decided to buy a harp. After the John’s death in 1967, Alice experienced a period of trial, suffering insomnia and hallucinations. Alice now taught herself how to play the harp, conjuring up an impressionistic and effervescent music. It was during this period Alice started to release records as a composer and bandleader. This music was a sublime musical mix of jazz, gospel, Indian classical, North African music, and European modernism.

After travelling to India to study Hinduism she took the name Turiya Sagittinanda. On her return to America she set up an ashram. It was here she started performing with ashram members, performing Hindu devotionals with meditative Indian instrumentation, an Oberheim OB-8 synthesiser, droning Wurlitzer lines, and singing (evoking the Detroit church choirs of her youth).

Sunn O))) consists of two core members, guitarists Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley. They take their name and logo from the Sunn amplifier brand. Initially, following in the wake of the pioneering drone metal band, Earth, they gradually expanded their sound to embrace diverse genres including drone, doom metal, avant-garde , black metal, dark ambient and noise rock.

The Sunn O))) sound has evolved through a multitude of collaborations, working with Ulver, Boris, Scott Walker, Julian Cope, Merzbow and Nurse With Wound. They now regularly use shadow member, Attila Csihar (singer from Norwegian Black Metal band Mayhem), as a primary vocalist.

On their album ‘Monoliths & Dimensions’ they worked with a wide range of guest musicians including, choirs, orchestra and jazz musicians. Speaking of these collaborations, Stephen O'Malley said, “like a prism... our music is the white light going in, a lot of the colour comes out the other side through the amazing arrangements and personalities of the guest performers and core collaborators”. The final track of this album ‘Alice’, was recorded shortly after Alice Coltrane’s death in 2007, is a dedication to the recently departed Alice.