Stephen O'Malley - Avaeken (2026)

Written for four Ebow-ed guitars, 'Avaeken' preserves a site-specific piece that O'Malley used to accompany an exhibition by Banks Violette. It's a microtonal symphony dedicated to Alvin Lucier and Kali Malone that's almost physically disorienting - RIYL Eleh, Phill Niblock, Pauline Oliveros et al.

It must be difficult to strike a balance when you're best known for creating some of the heaviest, most chest-pummeling drone music to ever vibrate from a stack of Sun amplifiers. But O'Malley's risen to the challenge; 'Avaeken' is relatively minimal, for him at least, but smacks with an intensity that you don't really see coming until your body starts feeling it. Made using four vibrating strings, he tunes the instruments to create that unsettling beating sound that seems to whirl around the noggin as the resonances interfere with each other. O'Malley wrote the piece following a commission from Belgium's ZWERM electric guitar quartet in 2020, performing it a handful of times before they knuckled down and recorded it in Gent's Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, a medieval hospital that's been fitted out with the proper acoustic treatments.

And if you've been studying O'Malley's output carefully, you'll already know that he's frequently been spotted alongside Violette, the American artist best known for his huge sculptures and installations. The two have been friends for two decades at this point and have worked together multiple times, so when Violette was describing his show 'Wish You Were Here', an exhibition that tears at the fabric of America's subcultural underground, O'Malley immediately thought about this piece. The link might not be obvious, but O'Malley's use of phase cancellation - when "sound energy is eating itself", in O'Malley's own words - reaps ample rewards here. The effect is unsubtle, penetrating oscillations so disorienting that Violette's themes of societal rot emanate from every skewed tone.

O'Malley presents two takes of the same piece, fixing Violette's striking artwork - of a cracked mirror ball - to the cover. And it's incredible to hear him working as a composer for a change, letting the ZWERM quartet do the heavy lifting. Their expertise helps elevate the piece; it's precise, expertly rendered gear, the kind of thing you need to give your full attention to. Surprisingly, it's also got more in common with those Sunn O))) records than you might expect - play at high volume and you'll know exactly what we mean.