This latest release from Stephen O’Malley consists of two organ drones, each more than 20 minutes, recorded on Les Grandes Orgues at Église Saint‑François, Lausanne.
This 18th-century instrument had been twice updated and expanded. The pieces were played by O’Malley, Kali Malone, and Frederikke Hoffmeier in December 2021.
O’Malley is best known as a co-founder of Sunn O))), where his measured yet high-volume approach helped define a major sub-genre of 21st-century drone and doom metal.
Across projects, collaborations, and commissions, he continued to push into more diverse forms. As a consequence, this pipe-organ recording serves as a logical extension to his works rather than a detour.
Tag Archive: Stephen O’Malley
Those with low expectations might still get something out of this new recording by Sunn O))) amp botherer Stephen O’Malley. On first listen, it’s a fairly underwhelming experience on account of its relative sparseness and brevity. Released in the Portraits GRM series, the “album” is a single piece so those who are after a physical copy would be advised to purchase it on compact disc. Not only is this cheaper, it means you won’t have to turn over an LP halfway through listening to the song. Once the CD is out of its shrink-wrap and in the machine, the display will read a total running time of 32:39. That’s fairly tight as far as drone-metal recordings go. Given that O’Malley is operating at his typical snail pace, it doesn’t allow for much musical expansion to occur before…