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LP
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EMEGO 278LP
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"Produced within the context of 'The Guidebook of Church Burners' publication release, this performance was recorded at visual arts institution LE BAL in Paris, May 4th 2018. Published by Païen in a limited edition, the book explores and transforms into an abstract narration the multiple facets of black metal iconography and history. Emerging from a dialogue between sound and image, the otherworldly piece created for that evening by Stephen O'Malley is a result of this collaboration." --Emilie Lauriola Cover photo by Elodie Lesourd, Charleroi 2017. Mix and mastered by Stephan Mathieu, Schwebung November 2019. Vinyl cut at Schnittstelle, Berlin December 2019.
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2LP
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IDEAL 136LP
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Stephen O'Malley on Fuck Fundamentalist Pigs upon its initial release in December 2015: "On 8 January 2015, the day following the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris (the city I have called home for the last eight years), I started a week-long tour of Norway. During this jaunt I faced the toxic reality daily of the horrible blossoming events intermittently via television. . . . The Trondheim concert on 9 January (depicted here) happened on a particularly intense day in this timeline... and was personally a true example of the purging power of immersion in music. Through a web of emotions resolving distance, disintegration, the intense power of the moment and the brutal fundamentalist, cultural and psychological aspects behind. . . Like most of us I have also sometimes fallen for the constant baiting toward anger, outrage, paranoia and fear in the daily life, often but not always misdirected, but it is not debilitating by any means. It's clear that as an experimental guitar player I have absolutely no political power (or even ability to articulate in those forms) but it's important to take the opportunity to say 'fuck you' in these situations. To the fascist and fundamentalist movements. To the absurding of the worst sides of monotheistic belief systems. And not only the perpetrators behind these events but also on other sides including the reactive and opportunistic. Those with most to gain are the underlying authoritarians in our own societies who have opportunities to implement and increase their control even further for their gains. The 'security' changes we face in fact may also result in yet further increase in the loss of liberty and freedom. The reactions aimed toward increased separation of cultures, xenophobia, nationalism, and especially racism are highly regrettable. I hope these recordings offer a small sense of solace in the time, even for the few hundred who hear them. . . . For the concert on this record we had a massive backline with beautiful vintage Hiwatt amplifiers, and two PAs (including a Funktion One) in the small venue Blæst, the night hosted by Nymusikk. . . . This record is actually the third part of a trilogy of live solo guitar records we intended to be released on iDEAL during spring 2016." Mastered and cut by Matt Colton; Edition of 700 (hand-numbered).
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LP
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IDEAL 135LP
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Limited 2017 repress. End Ground forms the 3rd and final installment in a series of records documenting the solo prowess of Sunn 0)))'s Stephen O'Malley released on Sweden's iDEAL Recordings. It was performed on electric guitar thru Sunn model T amps, and captured on zoom H4 at Centre Cultural Suisse, Bad Bonn Carte Blanche, Paris, France, on October 18th, 2013. In solo mode, stripped of his usual accomplices and collaborators, O'Malley is no less than an elemental force. His durational meditations absorb and consume with steady-handed wave after wave of charred, sustained, and sub-harmonized chords casting the mesmerizing minimalist practice of La Monte Young into the physicality of Black Sabbath's original, heavy metal die. The A-side/first half of this 45 minute performance features O'Malley tentatively coaxing out languorous riffs which turn the air around him to a pensive, vibrating mush. As the 2nd half dawns he begins to deliver more crushing blows, drawing out and subsiding the chords with a patented, gut-wrenching and vivifying power that transcends rock, avant-garde, minimalism -- all of that -- to awaken dormant senses not usually experienced with other musics or concise temporality. As with many of the most affective heavy drone recordings by Sunn 0))), among others, a modicum of patience is required in order to attain the right state for reception, but once your mind and body are malleable, the impact is deliciously visceral, primal and whelming. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. Individually hand-numbered edition of 700 copies.
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LP
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DDS 013LP
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Restocked, last copies. The dark interpreter Stephen O'Malley ov Sunn O))) presents his towering orchestral composition Gruidés, commissioned by French 35-piece improv orchestra ONCEIM -- l'Orchestre de Nouvelles Créations, Expérimentations et Improvisation Musicales -- and released thru Demdike Stare's DDS label. In early 2014 O'Malley was approached by pianist and composer Frédéric Blondy to write a work for the orchestra, which is made up of exceptional musicians from the fields of contemporary, jazz, experimental, improvisation, and classical. Understandably intimidated by the prospect, but encouraged to "just be punk rock about it," the preternaturally gifted composer has conceived a technically demanding -- for the players, at least -- and richly rewarding long-form drone piece intently focused on harmonic experimentation and overtone study. During its 35-minute lifespan, Gruidés requires the musicians to sustain pitches for several minutes (which is difficult enough for strings, and a real feat of endurance for woodwind), yielding spectra of eliding dissonance rent in sliding tone clusters and lucent geometries punctuated by a similar whipcrack percussion to that used in Sunn O)))'s 2014 collaboration with Scott Walker. It makes great use of the acoustic qualities of Saint Merry church in central Paris, as captured in the recording of IRCAM's Augustin Muller and mastered by Matt Colton with a detached spaciousness evocatively distilled in Jean-Luc Verna's cover art. It's an incredibly immersive piece that comes highly recommended if you're into the work of Phill Niblock, Alvin Lucier, Ellen Fullman, Harley Gaber, and, indeed, Sunn O))).
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