Senyawa & Stephen O’Malley - Bima Sakti

SOMA travelled to Indonesia and met the doom/folk duo Senyawa. Yes, it's like Sunn O))) participates in an ancient ritual. 2020 LP on iDEAL Recordings.

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François J. Bonnet & Stephen O'Malley ‎– Cylene

2019 2 X LP on Editions Mego.

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Stephen O'Malley & Z'EV ‎– Magistral

2007 cd on Southern Lord.

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St. Francis Duo (Stephen O'Malley & Steve Noble) ‎– Peacemaker Assembly

2016 lp on Trost Records.

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Stephen O'Malley ‎– Gruidés LP

2015 LP on DDS.

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Stephen O'Malley ‎– Auflösung Der Zeit LP

2020 LP on Editions Mego.

NOW FIXED

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Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts

All of you must have listened to it by now, but since I got my copy I thought to post it. While kinda less in your face than Life Metal it seems to me that this is the closest album to their original form, i.e. before they started experimenting a lot on White 1. I also appreciate the slightly less buffed up sound than that of Life Metal, which was, as I had written, the only real downside of Albini's involvement. 2019 LP on Southern Lord.

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Sunn O))) ‎– Life Metal

I could finish this by just saying that when you start your new album with a sample of Odin's horse from Bathory's "A Fine Day To Die," then this should be the album of the year, but i'll refrain from doing so. And because boredom and lack of time forbids me from writing a very meaningful review I'll just say that this is the more Sunn O))) record faithful to their early sound since Flight of the Behemoth, which means endless riffs without many experimentations. The vocals of Hildur Guðnadóttir on track one remind of "The Gates of Ballard" from White1 and there's some orchestral stuff close to Monoliths and Dimensions involved in track 2, and the 12-minute cello drone break on the last track is superb, but pretty much we have relentless guitar drone noise. The riffs are good but not like the best of their career like "Hunting And Gathering" or "Hell-O)))-Ween" and while the production is very strong, and much as I love Steve Albini, I kind of think that the recording does not convey the immensely hypnotic quality of OO Void or White2, thus there's something missing here. Still it's fun to hear, and this is what you should. 2019 cd on Southern Lord.

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Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine ‎– Rampton cd

Not like that this is a rare album but I'm not sure whether it exists in 320 kbps so there you go. TOLRTD (named after the same-titled track by Earth) is a gathering of four mammoths of doom/sludge/drone, Stephen O' Malley and Greg Anderson of Sunn O))) on guitar and bass respectively, Lee Dorrian of Cathedral on vocals, and Justin Greaves of Iron Monkey/Electric Wizard/Crippled Black Phoenix on drums. The result is just mouth-opening. Take the deafening soul-emptying guitar drone of Sunn O))), mix it with the drum torturing strikes of Greaves (of course he is undoubtedly the greatest drummer in the genre) and get Dorrian on top in his one of his best performances ever, singing in a threatening and ominous style, far away from the hippyish shit of late 1990s Cathedral (maybe he was in a heavy doom mood, as Cathedral had just released the crushing Endtyme at that point), and you get an awesome classic of doom/drone. First track is a pun on Queens of The Stone Age's "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" with drug references and all, second track is a top-notch cover of fuckin' Killdozer's "New Pants and Shirt" and track three is an amazing ritual doom classic with church organ and all that borders on Thergothon worship. i used to listen to this as a teenager with my then-girlfriend after sex and the heaviness really emptied any energy that had been left after coming. Isn't all this convincing enough? 2002 cd on Rise Above.

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Lotus Eaters - Wurmwulv

The second and last full-length (fourth release overall) of Lotus finds continuing their electro-acoustic drone improv experiments with a slightly noisier touch I'd say and a darker, more desolate feeling that is also similar to the Aethenor project O'Malley had started during that period. 2007 cd on Troubleman Unlimited.

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PS. There's another Lotus Eater release entitled Alienist On A Pale Horse. Opium Hum blog has uploaded it, so you can't find it there.

Lotus Eaters - Mind Control For Infants

First full-length for Lotus Eaters, and one of the very first drone/experimental albums I've ever heard. First two tracks focus on beautiful electro-acoustic guitar-based ambient sounds, while the following four tracks go further into more abstract/ musique concrete territory with found sounds, e-bows and some threatening bass sounds. The final track's drone static is just a liberating, glorious piece and I think that there's an underlying narrative approach through phases of sleeping here, or at least that's how I always perceived this album. A true masterpiece-if anyone could share the purported expanded lp version on Taiga Records I'd be more than grateful. 2002 cd on Neurot Recordings.

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Lotus Eaters - Lotus Eaters 7"

Lotus Eaters is a sadly now defunct project consisting of three of my high-school musical heroes, James Plotkin, Aaron Turner, and Stephen O' Malley. However, much to the consternation of most people who expected a mind-blowing sludge/doom monster, in this project they played immensely beautiful and dreamy drone/electro-acoustic improv music. There is excellent musicianship and production here, featuring both acoustic instruments like guitar and accordion and made sounds akin to a quiet form of musique concrete, and the whole thing revolves around a gorgeous acoustic guitar melody. More than highly recommended. 2002 7" on Drone Records.

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