Stephen O'Malley | |
---|---|
Born | July 15, 1974 |
Origin | Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
Genres | Drone metal, doom metal, experimental metal, dark ambient |
Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, art director, graphic designer |
Instrument(s) | Guitar, bass guitar, piano, synthesizer |
Years active | 1993–present |
Labels | Southern Lord, Aurora Borealis, Editions Mego, Hydra Head, Sub Rosa, VHF |
Spouse | |
Website | http://www.stephenomalley.com |
Stephen O'Malley (sometimes referred to as SOMA; born July 15, 1974) [1] is an American guitarist, producer, composer, and visual artist from Seattle, Washington, who has conceptualized and participated in numerous drone metal, doom metal, and experimental music bands, most notably Sunn O))).
O'Malley is a founding member of several bands including Sunn O))) (1998–present), Thorr's Hammer (1994–1995), Burning Witch (1995–1998), KTL (2005–2021), and Khanate (2000–2006). Within these projects and alone, he has collaborated with a variety of musical artists, including Greg Anderson, Scott Walker, Merzbow, Eyvind Kang, Alan Moore, Iancu Dumitrescu, Ana-Maria Avram, Alvin Lucier, F.M. Einheit, Randall Dunn, James Plotkin, Julian Cope, Joe Preston, Attila Csihar, Stuart Dempster, Mika Vainio, Peter Rehberg, Lee Dorian, Thurston Moore, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Nurse With Wound, Boris, Michio Kurihara, Jim O'Rourke, Keiji Haino, Daniel O'Sullivan & Kristoffer Rygg (in the free improvisation act Æthenor together with Vincent de Roguin and Steve Noble), Aaron Turner, David Tibet, Oren Ambarchi, Alexander Tucker, Z'EV, and more recently with Senyawa, Félicia Atkinson, Kali Malone, and François J. Bonnet. [2]
O'Malley also produced work together with the Franco-Austrian choreographer and director Gisèle Vienne on the pieces Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk (2008), Eternelle Idole (2009), This Is How You Will Disappear (2010), [3] Last Spring: A Prequel (2011), The Pyre (2013) and L'Etang (2021). He has also worked with American sculptor Banks Violette (various projects between 2005–2009), the Italian performance artist Nico Vascellari (2007–2011), Swiss art collective KLAT (2009), and the Belgian film maker Alexis Destoop (Kairos with Oren Ambarchi, 2010).[ citation needed ]
O'Malley has designed record covers since the early 1990s for groups such as Earth, Burzum, Emperor, Mayhem, Gehenna, Boris, Dissection, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Cathedral. He has also worked as a rock/metal music journalist & published a black metal fanzine called Descent in the 1990s. He was involved with creation of both the Southern Lord [4] label and the experimental/neofolk/black metal label The Ajna Offensive. [5] In 2011, he began curating and art directing the Ideologic Organ record label, in association with the Viennese Editions Mego.[ citation needed ]
Although he is originally from Seattle, Washington, he lives in Paris, France. [6]
O'Malley is married to American composer and organist Kali Malone, which they announced jointly on Instagram in July 2023. [7] [8] [9]
Mego was an experimental electronic music independent record label based in Vienna, Austria. The label has been superseded by a new company, Editions Mego, which was set up both to keep Mego albums in print and to issue new albums, run by Peter Rehberg a.k.a. Pita.
Sunn O))) is an American drone metal band formed in 1998 in Seattle, Washington. The band is known for its distinctive visual style and slow, heavy sound, which blends diverse genres including doom metal, drone, black metal, dark ambient, and noise rock, as well as for their extremely loud live performances.
Peter Rehberg, also known as Pita, was a British-Austrian composer of electronic audio works. He was the head of Editions Mego, which he founded in 2006 as a successor to Mego.
Kevin Drumm is an experimental musician based in Chicago, United States.
Attila Gábor Csihar, also sometimes known as Void, is a Hungarian extreme metal vocalist, best known for his vocal work in Norwegian black metal band Mayhem and American drone metal band Sunn O))). Author Ian Christe describes his vocals as "operatic".
Joe Preston is an American bass guitarist and a former band member of the rock bands Earth, Melvins, Men's Recovery Project, The Need and High on Fire. Preston has also played with Sunn O))), and has his long-running solo project called Thrones. In 2007, he joined Harvey Milk in the studio for the recording of Life... The Best Game in Town and toured with them during their 2008 US and European tours. He is currently serving as a touring member of Sumac. He is the uncle of actor Dominic Janes.
Oren Ambarchi is an Australian musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays mainly electric guitar and percussion.
Burning Witch was an American doom/sludge metal band from Seattle, Washington, active between 1995 and 1998. Aside from EPs and split releases, the band released a compilation album called Crippled Lucifer, which had songs of their early EPs.
Grendel is a Dutch music group formed in 1997. Their music is in the electro-industrial genre. Their name originates from the beast in Beowulf.
Thorr's Hammer was an American-Norwegian death-doom band.
Greg Anderson is an American musician, a co-founder of Southern Lord Records.
John Haughm is an American musician and artist. He is most known for being the founder, guitarist, and vocalist of the band Agalloch, and later Pillorian. He is also a designer who has created packaging and merchandise for several record labels and bands, including every project in which he has performed. From 2008 to 2018 he was the co-owner, creative director, and curator of the Dämmerung Arthouse.
KTL was an American-Austrian musical project consisting of Stephen O'Malley ))) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), originally formed to create the music for a theater production titled Kindertotenlieder by Gisèle Vienne and Dennis Cooper. The production premiered in Brest, France, in March 2007.
Stephan Mathieu is a German mastering engineer and former musician. He currently lives in Bonn, Germany where he runs Schwebung Mastering, an independent studio for audio mastering and restoration.
The following is the discography of the Japanese experimental band Boris.
Gravetemple is an American drone metal band, consisting of Attila Csihar, Stephen O'Malley and Oren Ambarchi. The trio formed in the summer of 2006 when Sunn O))) was invited to play in Israel, while Israel was engaged in the 2006 Lebanon War, and some of its members refused to travel there. In Summer 2008, the trio reformed together with Australian drummer Matt "Skitz" Sanders for a short European tour. This band is not to be confused with the Burial Chamber Trio, which consists of a similar line-up but with Greg Anderson instead of Stephen O'Malley. Gravetemple released The Holy Down in 2007 through Southern Lord Records.
Aidan Baker is an electronic musician from Toronto, Ontario, Canada who has released numerous records both as a solo artist and as part of various side projects, including Nadja, ARC, Caudal and Mnemosyne. He has also written several books of poetry.
Dømkirke is a live album by American drone metal band Sunn O))) that was recorded at Bergen Cathedral in Bergen, Norway, during the Borealis Festival. The album was pressed only on vinyl, but it was later made available in digital-download and streaming formats. It is a double album that features one track on each side of the records. The packaging of Dømkirke features artwork by the Norwegian visual artist Tania Stene.
The discography of Sunn O))), an American drone metal band, consists of nine studio albums, three collaborative albums, six EPs, four demos, one remix album, eight official live albums, one box set compilation, two stand-alone singles and three compilation contributions.
Kali Malone is an American composer and organist based in Stockholm. Her works implement unique tuning systems in minimalist form for analog and digital synthesis often combined with acoustic instrumentation.