Forest Nocturne
The Lord
Southern Lord
Greg Anderson is guitarist with Sunn O))) He is well used to the sound of loud droning guitars. This is his solo venture. He has captured a sound here on his debut album of tension. Close your eyes and picture the scene. You have been kidnapped, blindfolded and bound. You have been brought into a forest, you know as you can smell the wood and pine cone. You can feel the dampness that the tree protrude. The life of the forest. It’s pitch black and you’ve no idea where you are or how to get anywhere.
So you walk, there’s a soundtrack playing but you’ve no idea whether it is sounds or music. You hear a riff played over and over for nearly four minutes. You move
Along the way you come across a building which has all the hallmarks of a chruch. You step in and see an imposing organ. Let’s bang out a tune you think, except no matter what you do it will only drone.
The radio wavelengths start reverberating around the room as you try and tune into your surroundings. You get lost in the noise and the darkness.
Then you see a chink of light and head towards it. You get closer you walk faster and breakthrough the darkness. The light is blinding as the noise reverberates around your brain.
An alarm goes off, you wonder where you are. A guitar riff plays. Are they coming to get you, your chance to escape or do you want to enter into a world of industrial noise. You journey on.
Your small pathway seems to have objects hovering overhead, you keep meandering along, wondering where this journey is going.
As you move you come across bushes, overgrown and sharp. You work your way through them feeling you’re nearly free but still unsure what or where free is. Objects fly in your face, are they bats or machinery or is the soundtrack playing havoc with your head. Suddenly you see something, or you think you can. Is it a person cutting the hedgerow? Is there a gap? Slowly you head towards the noise. There is clock somewhere, is it striking 12, maybe it’s more but you can sense freedom. You move faster, the sound grows louder. You feel freedom is close
You climb through a gap, you’re not quite there. A bike appears to take you through the mire. Engine running, maybe it’s a helicopter? You get on, you go fast. You are ahead, the forest tries to drag you back in, calling out in a way you’ve only heard in horror movies. Is your horror finished. You move faster, the sound doesn’t dim. Can you escape the clutches of the forest? The trees are coming alive, the ground is loosening. You keep going.
Someone is looking, you break free. At least you think you do – daylight arrives, you are clear. The record ends. what a strange enrapturing journey
niallhope
