Sunn O))) discography

Sunn O))) discography
Studio albums9
EPs6
Live albums9
Compilation albums1
Singles2
Collaborative albums3
Demos8
Remix albums1

The discography of Sunn O))), an American drone metal band, consists of nine studio albums, three collaborative albums, six EPs, four demos, one remix album, eight official live albums (plus one hundred and fifteen collected bootleg live recordings), one box set compilation, two stand-alone singles and three compilation contributions.

Founded by Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley, Sunn O))) is an experimental drone metal band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1998 originally under the name "Mars".[1] The band signed with Hydra Head Records, founded by Isis frontman Aaron Turner, and released both The Grimmrobe Demos and its debut album ØØ Void. At the same time, Anderson founded his own label Southern Lord Records, which would become the band's primary outlet for most of their releases throughout their entire career. The band's first release through the label was Flight of the Behemoth (2002), which notably included two collaborations with Japanese noise artist Merzbow. They describe the sound and their approach to their first three major releases as worshiping the drone metal band Earth and sludge metal band Melvins,[2][1] both from Sunn O)))'s home state of Washington. Sunn O)))'s next two albums, White1 (2003) and White2 (2004), were written and recorded at the same time and was said of the band to be an important turning point in the band's sound that allowed them to create the albums that would follow. They released the "claustrophobic" black metal album Black One (2005) and a collaboration with Japanese noise rock band Boris titled Altar (2006). Their interest in pushing the boundaries of metal music culminated in the orchestral Monoliths & Dimensions (2009), a critically acclaimed[3] album that broke through the underground scene, landing on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.[4]

While Anderson founded the Southern Lord label, in 2011 O'Malley founded his own label named Ideologic Organ, an imprint of the Viennese electronic/experimental label Editions Mego.[5] Through Ideologic Organ, Sunn O))) began releasing odds-and-ends albums, including the demos Rehearsal Demo Nov 11 2011 and Downtown LA Rehearsal / Rifftape March 1998, and the single "青木ヶ原 // 樹海". In 2014, the band released two collaborative albums: Terrestrials with Norwegian experimental group Ulver and Soused with avant-garde musician Scott Walker, the latter of which became Sunn O)))'s most commercially successful album, landing at #88 on the Billboard 200, and was the final studio album by Walker before his death in 2019. The band's next album Kannon was born out of the Monoliths & Dimensions sessions and centers its theme around the female Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. In 2019, the band released Life Metal, featuring a comparatively more positive tone and mood, and Pyroclasts, a meditative experimental album produced by Steve Albini (Shellac, Big Black).[1]

Sunn O)))'s discography features several limited-edition and tour-exclusive albums. The band has said these albums are a "win-win" solution that provide a reward to diehard fans and also help to fund expensive world tours.[6] Most of the band's albums have been released in Japan through the local Daymare Recordings.[7] In April 2013, Sunn O))) uploaded its entire discography to the music streaming platform Bandcamp.[8] In June 2015, Sunn O))) launched a Live Archive of fan-submitted "unmixed, unmastered raw footage" of live performances through both their official website and Bandcamp. The archive launched with 67 recordings dating back to 2002.[9]

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