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The apocalyptic tone of Scott Walker, Sunn O))) and Soused

2020; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14797585.2020.1806441

1740-1666

Adam Potts,

Literature, Magical Realism, García Márquez

This paper attempts to listen to Scott Walker and Sunn O)))’s respective music, and their collaboration Soused, by way of Maurice Blanchot’s notion of disaster which is framed in relation to the ‘apocalyptic tone’. This notion of the apocalyptic tone is used throughout the paper as a way of referring to the unheard and unspeakable dimensions of their music. Structurally and methodologically, this paper is inspired by the work of Daniela Cascella who uses sonic references to both amplify the unheard and unspeakable dimensions of written texts, voices and places and to establish connections between previously disconnected points. In a similar way, this paper contains three imagined frequencies that, in turn, place Walker, Sunn O))) and Soused in proximity with disaster. The first imagined frequency draws Blanchot and Walker together through the ideas of apocalyptic tone and ‘edge work’, the latter being Walker’s term for trying to speak the unspeakable with his lyrics. The second frequency pulls Sunn O))) and Blanchot together by reconsidering Sunn O)))’s aesthetic and drone music through the temporality of disaster. The final imagined frequency consolidates the ideas from the first two in an analysis of Soused, where collaboration is framed in terms of Blanchot’s notion of the secret.