Sunn O)))'s Stephen O'Malley Releases Orchestral Album

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Jul 16, 2015

If you've already blasted through drone duo Sunn O)))'s monolithic live archive, you can now sample some new, experimental solo work from the band's Stephen O'Malley. His improv-based Gruidés for Demdike Stare's DDS imprint went up for sale today (July 16).

A press release explains that the set finds O'Malley working with the 35-piece l'Orchestre de Nouvelles Créations, Expérimentations et Improvisation Musicales (ONCEIM), with the results "yielding a gloaming spectra of eliding dissonance."

It's further explained that O'Malley had first been in touch with pianist and composer Frédéric Blondy, who commissioned the Sunn O))) member to compose an orchestral piece for the ONCEIM, which contains various avant grade and conceptual jazz musicians. O'Malley produced a 35-minute drone described as a "harmonic experimentation and overtone study."

Gruidés was recorded at Paris' Saint Merry church by Augustin Muller and is said to include various sustained pitches, a mix of strings and woodwinds, and "whipcrack percussion" similar to what was heard on Sunn O)))'s Soused collaboration with Scott Walker. Touchstones for the release include Phill Niblock, Alvin Lucier, Ellen Fullman, Harley Gaber and, of course, Sunn 0))).

Gruidés has been delivered in a limited pressing of 300 copies on blue wax, which can be obtained now through Boomkat.
 

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