Sun Araw

Cameron Stallones channels an array of recognizable sources through his Sun Araw project, spanning psychedelia and space rock to Afro-pop and dub, yet the resulting sound resists straightforward links to any particular musician or style. Launched initially as an experimental solo project during his tenure with the California psych ensemble Magic Lantern, the earliest Sun Araw recordings, including the 2008 album Beach Head, featured eerie extended lo-fi drones that became regarded as key documents of the hypnagogic pop movement then enjoying widespread attention. Stallones wove distorted dub patterns into subsequent efforts such as the 2010 release On Patrol, which paved the way for a joint recording with Jamaican reggae icons the Congos and analog-synth specialist M. Geddes Gengras on the acclaimed 2012 album Icon Give Thank. He also convened multiple band and trio lineups of Sun Araw for spontaneous live performances, one of which paired him with new-age innovator Laraaji and yielded the 2016 double album Professional Sunflow. Later Sun Araw studio efforts, among them the country-tinged The Saddle of the Increate (2017) and the collective improvisation Rock Sutra (2020), traded psychedelic textures for angular, intricate rhythmic constructions.

A native of Austin, Texas, Stallones has long made his home in Long Beach, California. He contributed guitar and vocals to the psychedelic outfit Magic Lantern, which began issuing material on the Los Angeles label Not Not Fun Records in 2007. His debut pair of Sun Araw albums, The Phynx and Beach Head, both surfaced on that imprint in 2008, while the EP Boat Trip appeared the same year via New York’s Woodsist. He continued with NNF for the 2009 LP Heavy Deeds and a split EP alongside Predator Vision, plus the 2010 On Patrol album and Sun Ark single that shared its title with his studio and label. A live cassette with Matthewdavid titled LIVEPHREAXXX!!!! came out on Leaving Records, and Off Duty arrived on Woodsist, with the CD version bundling his initial EP for the label.

Sun Araw’s Houstron Abstros 7" emerged on Austin’s Monofunus Press in 2011. Later that year a collaboration with Eternal Tapestry called Night Gallery was issued by Thrill Jockey, while the solo full-length Ancient Romans, mastered by Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3, appeared via the Drag City-distributed Sun Ark imprint. A split single with Spacemen 3 followed on The Great Pop Supplement in 2012. Icon Give Thank, the joint project with reggae vocal ensemble the Congos and experimental musician M. Geddes Gengras, formed the ninth installment of RVNG Intl.’s FRKWYS series and was packaged with the DVD Icon Eye, filmed in Jamaica to document the sessions. Stallones and Gengras further pursued abstract dancehall via their Duppy Gun Productions label. Also in 2012 he released the first two volumes of the limited-edition cassette-only Sun Ark Prayer Tapes series and, in September, the album Inner Treaty. A version of Neil Young’s “Thrasher” occupied the A-side of a Monofonus split single with Ralph White in 2013. Stallones joined the experimental electronic collective Celebrate Music Synthesizer Group, whose self-titled double LP likewise appeared that year.

The next year Sun Araw issued Belomancie, an experimental double album, followed in 2015 by the double LP The Gazebo Effect under the name S. Araw “Trio” XI. In 2016 the live double-album collaboration Professional Sunflow with new-age pioneer Laraaji was released by W.25TH, an imprint of reissue specialist Superior Viaduct. Sun Araw returned in 2017 with the Western-flavored The Saddle of the Increate, another expansive set. Stallones’ score for Fulvio Risuleo’s film Guarda in Alto came out on Italian label Goodfellas in 2018. Early in 2019 NNA Tapes delivered Activated Clown, comprising two extended whimsical improvisations credited to S. Araw Trio XIII. Sun Araw’s Rock Sutra, a studio album captured straight to MIDI, surfaced in 2020. Fantasias for Violin and Guitar, an improvised collaboration with Estonian artist Maarja Nuut, appeared later that year. A 2017 recording with double bassist Tomo Jacobson made at the Vinterjazz Festival in Copenhagen supplied the soundtrack to Velocity Holomatrix Warp 7, an interactive audio-visual work created by Stallones and Theo Triantafyllidis; the program launched in November 2020, with the soundtrack released as VHW7 in early 2021.