Ten years old, Sunn O)))'s seventh album, Monoliths & Dimensions is coming out of the vortex May 18 on Southern Lord. Fans of walls of sounds, loud noises, and feedback, mark your calendars, because this album is promising to be a doosey just given the sheer size and shape of the ensemble surrounding it. The band, however, emphatically states that this is not "SUNN with strings." Instead, they "took an approach concentrating on more of allusion toward the timbre of feedback and the instruments involved, so the piece is really illusory, beautiful and not entirely linear."

Not sure what that means, but I do know the facts, and the facts are that, in addition to Oren Ambarchi and Attila Csihar (man, I hope his mom named him that on her own), this time they are working with Eyvind Kang (who has played viola in or with the likes of Bill Frisell, Secret Chiefs 3, Mike Patton, Blonde Redhead, and Laura Veirs to name a handful), Julian Priester (who has worked with Sun Ra, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock), Dylan Carlson (Kurt Cobain's total BFF and lead guitarist/singer/basically only constant of droney band, Earth), and Stuart Dempster (a horn player who not only won the Guggenheim in ’81, but is also credited for introducing the didjeridu to North America) as well as three upright bassists, French and English horns, a harp and flute duo, piano, brass, reed and strings ensembles, and there's rumor of a partridge in a pear tree, but that has not been confirmed as of yet. Oh, and there's also a Viennese woman's choir led by Jessika Kenney.

Monoliths & Dimensions tracklist:

1. Aghartha
2. Big Church [megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért]
3. Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)
4. Alice

[Photo: Mike Burns]