Stephen O’Malley
Géante 4 (Performed by Eye Music)
SCORE: 8 clusters out of 10
After a somewhat lackluster release through Editions Mego, Stephen O’Malley steps into the orchestral director’s chair, and delivers two terrifying and sublime drone pieces, performed by the Eye Music ensemble.
My partner doesn’t enjoy drone music at all. Whenever I play an album or a song she puts on her headphones, or simply goes back to the bedroom. The tantrum goes double if the piece involves distortion and feedback. It’s funny, because the kitchen sink in our apartment has a malfunctioning faucet, and from time to time, the high pressure will make it burst into a screeching sound that could be a drone piece in itself; she has even told me that “it sounds like one of your annoying songs!”. She’s not completely off, as it does have a certain cadence that makes it musical even if its timbre becomes unbearable after a few seconds. Another funny aspect of this sound, is that it’s in the same key as Stephen O’Malley’s previous release, Auflösung der Zeit.
When I first saw the announcement for that release, I was thrilled; after all, O’Malley had been killing it for most of 2019 with Sunn O))) and on his collaboration with François J. Bonnet. Unfortunately, Auflösung was somewhat underwhelming. It had the basics of Stephen’s style: It was a 44 minutes exploration of a single note played on a loud guitar, but it just didn’t have any nuances; it just felt too skeletal, like the sketch for a bigger piece that we never got to hear. Even Sunn O)))’s demos feel more complete.
Come April 17th, a day which saw the release of another solo effort from the drone overlord, but this is one that doesn’t have him in the frontline. Launched through his own label, Géante 4 is comprised of two pieces for which O’Malley provided instructions, in the form of a graphic notation of his own making, for the Eye Music ensemble to follow. Stephen had been dwelling into the role of director for some time now, but it wasn’t until now that his compositions had been given a proper release.
By now, we know that much of O’Malley’s work revolves around restrain, but Géante 4 takes this concept to the extreme, with its elongated mantras. The trance created by the ensemble as they block all the potential directions one can take from a single root note, is genuine. The use of tone clusters and the overtones and dissonances derived from them give the pieces so much volume and density; you actually feel lighter once the experience is over. The album doesn’t even surpass the half hour mark, but it feels eternal.
Both tracks on this album have a similar structure and approach, so, at first, it may seem like there’s not much going on, but that’s exactly how these pieces trap you. You start paying attention, waiting for a change to come, you listen to each instrument individually waiting for a slight variation, but everything remains in the same course; in the meantime, this droning persistence has already engulfed you, and by the seventh minute of the first track, there’s no way out. All the tension that had been building up has a rewarding climax in the form of an ascending glissando: It climbs up the scale at a glacial, menacing pace, absorbing all the notes in between; its nerve-inducing effect proves why chromaticism was rejected upon being first proposed.
All the instruments bury each other in this truly homogenic performance, but it is easy to distinguish one from the other, specially Esther Sugai’s flute, which is the most prominent instrument of all. Its high pitch fights through the low registers that surround it, creating a sense of instability, as one can only sustain the same note for so long on a wind instrument; its irregular vibration breaks the unison, making it responsible for much of the dissonance and nuances. One aspect that some may miss, is the presence of the roaring downtuned guitars that go hand in hand with most of Stephen’s work; however, their inclusion would have been somewhat derivative and distracting, taking the focus off from the fantastic performance by the Eye Music ensemble.
This comes to show that one must not lose faith that quickly, specially when it comes to an artist like O’Malley. Even if Auflösung lacked depth and nuance, Géante 4 more than makes up for it with its sublime and terrifying pieces, which feel gigantic without the need of maximum volume to yield maximum results. Along with his bandmate -Greg Anderson- Stephen has been breaking barriers between hard-hitting-loud-as-fuck metal and experimental music with excellent outcomes. Citing Edgard Varèse, Alice Coltrane as well as Bathory, while also championing fringe projects like Phurpa (who also have a new release) and working with the likes of Yann Tiersen, it is clear that his diverse and eclectic taste has proven to be a very nourishing element to his career.
