One of this withering orb’s most unceasingly brutal bands, Glasgow’s Black Sun have (in one form or another) been hurling around boot-to-skull riffs, imploding beats and sadistic noise for over a decade.

Russell McEwan, drummer, vocalist and solar core, knows his way around extremes of experience. He’s been at this game a while, as a former member of noise-rockers Macrocosmica and industrial experimentalists Test Dept, a sometime cohort of flesh-ripping body artist Ron Athey, and current pansexual high priest(ess) for conceptual noise duo Atomized.

While recording their sixth album, Twilight Of The Gods, Black Sun dragged Eugene Robinson across the Atlantic to contribute howls and shrieks, as is his wont. As the imposing antagonist at the helm of Oxbow, inter alia, Robinson knows a thing or two or twelve about transgressive, confrontational art himself. It seems like a match made in… well, not heaven. Maybe, the fevered nightmares of a late-stage syphilitic. How did these two burly, heavily inked purveyors of fury and catharsis come to be cracking jokes over bad instant coffee in a Glasgow studio?

“We’re big fans of Oxbow, “ says Russell. “And have been for a long time. We admire the intensity of Oxbow. When we had a chance to meet up in Holland [at the 2009 Roadburn festival], I thought well, let’s do something.”

“There’s a stark aestheticism about both of our stuff that I like – and attention to detail,” says Eugene. “Probably only other musicians would credit us with that, but our stuff is painstakingly constructed, and from the visual identity of Black Sun onwards there’s that attention to detail. There’s a discipline and a mania for order there. When we decided to do this, he did not have to communicate the reasons why or how we were going to make it happen at all.”

“Having Eugene on the album is just a different take for both of us,” says Russell. “We are pretty organised in Black Sun, but we like to add elements that aren’t fixed, that are more fluid – not a completely uncontrolled element, cause I think people tend to think that Eugene’s insane, but he’s not! He’s not crazy! ‘Is he going to be fighting you?’ No, I don’t think so…”

The two collaborative songs in question, ‘Tabula Rasa’ and ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ are typical of the band’s recent work – stunningly heavy and automata-precise, but with increasing groove and velocity compared to their previous warlike pummel. Eugene’s feral, unhinged vocalisations beautifully offset Black Sun’s regimented discipline.

“When we did ‘Tabula Rasa’ live at Roadburn, I did something that I never, ever do, which is I used their words,” says Eugene. “It was so strong rhythmically that I was hard pressed to take any serious narrative action. But in the interim I thought, OK, is there anything I can put in there that works and fits and makes sense, and I did with this album version. ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ was a lot more open-ended, so I could lyrically stretch. I’m familiar with Wagner, so the aim was to have it all thematically consistent.”

“Twilight Of The Gods is a Wagnerian reference,” explains Russell. “It’s one of those themes that never goes away. You’re in charge, you make the law, but you’re beyond the law. You see it happening again and again and again.”

“If I was in charge I’d be robbing and stealing with both hands,” says Eugene. “‘But what about the little man?’ Yeah. What about the little man? But if I’m on the other side of that equation, you’re right…”

“I liked the ‘gods’ theme as well,” says Russell. “Before god you had your father – but if your father’s not all that great then what have you got? People whose fathers aren’t all that great tend not to have a great relationship with god. And if that father’s not any fucking good, then what use is this other one?”

Anyone who’s seen Eugene in action, drooling, snarling and onanising his way to the other side of sanity, will testify to the memorable nature of an Oxbow gig. Uniformed in austere black-and-white and sonically unrelenting, Black Sun offer a less theatrical, but equally startling experience. Recent gigs have culminated in a bruising multi-drummer pileup, the audience’s space being invaded by a phalanx of flailing percussionists.

“That’s Black Sun Drum Corps, which is non-musicians, non-drummers,” says Russell. “We do this really simple, primal kind of thing. That’s what I like about Oxbow as well. You’ve got the live, visceral show, and then you have the parallel thing, the intellect, the books. I like that. But I never want to get away from the show. I like elements of showbiz, which is probably why I like Lady Gaga as well. You just get on and use that time to make as great an impact as you can.”

“To me, both the live thing and the studio thing, they don’t exist in my mind as separate from each other,” says Eugene. “It’s like that great Bukowski line: ‘Every now and then I have to show you that I’m not a monkey’. In other words, the confirmation that you receive that we are not accidents – that’s what you get from a studio album. Everything we’ve done we’ve intended to do. There are no accidents here, happy or otherwise. I don’t know if it’s valuable for people to hear that, but it’s necessary for us to know that.”

He continues: “It’s one thing to be able to do a live thing and to embrace, in the moment, elements of id, but again, there’s a process to that. Like Dali said: ‘the difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad’. There are people wandering the streets doing Oxbow shows every day, screaming at the sky and falling at the ground, but there is a difference between what we do and that guy. Sometimes it’s a smaller difference than other times.”

“It stops you going to the shed and sharpening the big knife,” says Russell. “Mental health.”

“Yeah!” agrees Eugene. “I feel much better as a result of doing this than not doing this. I think us feeling good is probably better for everybody than us feeling bad. But there are deeper reasons. I think we both believe that what we do has artistic validity. Scratching my balls gives me pleasure as well, but I’m not charging tickets for it. Not yet.”

Twilight Of The Gods is due in September

Words: Matt Evans  Photo by Alex Woodward www.crimsonglow.co.uk