The Halldorophone on Sunn O)))'s Life Metal
Life Metal is the eighth studio album by American drone metal band Sunn O))), released on Southern Lord Records on April 26, 2019. Hildur Guðnadóttir appears on the record as a featured collaborator, contributing vocals and electric cello to the opening track "Between Sleipnir's Breaths" and halldorophone to the closing track "Novæ".
The Album
Life Metal was recorded and mixed entirely on analog tape by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago in July 2018 — the band's first purely analog release from recording through to mastering. The core of Sunn O))), Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson, were joined in the studio by Tos Nieuwenhuizen on Moog synthesizer, Tim Midyett on bass, Anthony Pateras on pipe organ, and Hildur Guðnadóttir.
The album was recorded alongside a companion record, Pyroclasts, released later the same year. Both were produced by Anderson and O'Malley.
The Instrument
The halldorophone is an electroacoustic string instrument built around the deliberate use of audio feedback. It was designed and built by Halldór Úlfarsson, who first developed it as his MFA graduation piece at what is now Aalto University in Helsinki in 2008.
The instrument has eight strings: four main strings played with a bow and four sympathetic strings that resonate through the feedback system. Each string has a dedicated pickup. The signals are fed back through a speaker mounted inside the body of the instrument, creating a closed loop of mechanical vibration that the player shapes through bow technique and gain control. The result is an evolving, self-sustaining flow of harmonically dense drones — a sound particularly well suited to the textures of Life Metal.
Hildur Guðnadóttir's Contributions
"Between Sleipnir's Breaths" — Guðnadóttir contributes vocals and electric cello to the album's opening track. Sunn O))) worked with her in the studio using their "riff exchange" method, with the players improvising around one another.
"Novæ" — The 25-minute closing track features the halldorophone. The instrument's capacity for sustained, layered drone places it directly in the sonic territory Sunn O))) occupy, and reviewers noted the halldorophone's contribution as one of the defining elements of the track.
Credits
- Greg Anderson — guitars, bass drum
- Stephen O'Malley — guitars
- Hildur Guðnadóttir — halldorophone, electric cello, voice
- T.O.S. Nieuwenhuizen — Moog synthesizer
- Tim Midyett — bass guitar, bass crotales
- Anthony Pateras — pipe organ
- Recorded and mixed by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio, Chicago, July 2018
- Mastered by Matt Colton at Alchemy Mastering, London, October 2018
Further Reading
- Life Metal — Wikipedia
- Life Metal — Southern Lord
- Halldorophone — Wikipedia
- Bela Blog Interview with Halldór Úlfarsson (2025)