Sunn O))) Reveals New Album "Kannon"

It comes with immense pleasure for Southern Lord Recordings to announce the advent of a new studio album from Sunn O))), titled "Kannon," which will be officially released on December 4, 2015.

Composed in the aftershadow of Sunn O)))'s most recent successes in immersive collaboration -- the group having worked with Scott Walker on "Soused" and Ulver on "Terrestrials" in 2013 and 2014 -- and also from the broad and influential wake of "Monoliths & Dimensions," new album "Kannon" emerged both independently as a conceptual entity and with roots in the legacies of those projects. The album consists of three pieces of a triadic whole: "Kannon 1, 2 and 3."

The album celebrates many Ssunn O))) traditions: "Kannon" was recorded and mixed with close colleague and co-producer Randall Dunn in Seattle and the LP includes performances by long term allies and collaborators Attila Csihar, Oren Ambarchi, Rex Ritter, and Steve Moore to name a few.

The literal representation of "Kannon" is as an aspect of Buddha: specifically "goddess of mercy" or "Perceiving the Sounds (or Cries) of the World." She is also sometimes commonly known as the Guanyin Bodhisattva amongst a plurality of other forms. There is a rich lineage behind this idea tracing back through many Asian belief systems, with as many names and cultural personifications of the idea.

Sunn O))) commissioned critical theorist Aliza Shvartz to write text and liner notes around these ideas and topics. The band also enlisted Swiss designer/artist Angela LaFont Bollinger to create the cover artwork, an abstracted sculpture of vision of "Kannon." French photographer Estelle Hanania captures portraits of the core trio (Csihar, Anderson, O'Malley) in the impressive and obscurant Emanuel Vingeland mausoleum in Oslo.

"Kannon" will be available on gatefold LP, CD and digital formats worldwide on December 4, with a limited number of clear vinyl available on Black Friday, November 27.