Nun is a word with some weird connotations in popular culture. Of course, there’s Maria from The Sound Of Music, and Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. And who could forget Lindsay Lohan’s donning the black and white for her stunning role in Machete?
Melbourne group Nun want to change all that. They want to brand the word Nun with a singular meaning of ferocious synthesiser punk that crawls up your spine, lingers in your brain, and then unapologetically explodes out of your chest.
Their debut, self-titled album, released on Aarght! (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Ooga Boogas) is an exhilarating rollercoaster of emotion and visceral intensity. There isn’t a single song on the LP that doesn’t grab you, crush you, lift you up, and dump you in the gutter.
Moreover, Nun take you on a journey, wandering through a mental asylum on ‘Immersion II’ while discovering deranged pop on ‘Kino’ and ‘Evoke The Sleep’ (which also appears on the video for the recent Dark Mofo tour announcement). By the way, that’s only half the album!
Later on, ‘Lost Souls’ goes on a laser quest of self-discovery, and closer ‘In Blood’ ends the expedition with calming (in the Nun sense of the word) elongated, looming synths and pulsations that would drive a radio operator crazy.
What Nun are doing here is innovative. It’s not just synthesisers and screams. Their music is a nihilistic, independent force to be reckoned with. It doesn’t conform or convert to expectations. It might not be for the faint of heart, but it’ll be sure to go down in underground history, filed next to Primitive Calculators and Chrome.
Listen to ‘Evoke The Sleep’ from Nun here:
