„Insofar they may expand on the O))) principles albeit perhaps a more sculptural and angular direction; the extended solid and geometric aspects of the guitar and amplifiers, sound pressure, volume and temporal structure as ambiguous and solitary form.”

Stephen O’Malley, born 1974 in New Hampshire, USA, raised in Seattle. He eventually spent a decade in New York and presently is based in Paris. O’Malley is a founding member of several groups including Thorr's Hammer (1993), Burning Witch (1995), Sunn (1998), Khanate (2000), KTL (2005), Nazoranai (2011), ÄÄNIPÄÄ (2011) and others. He is a frequent collaborator of many “outsider” musicians, artists and composers in various formations, in projects inside and out of concert, exhibition, gallery and studio settings. He was also part of the formative teams which created the Southern Lord (1998) and Ajna Offensive (1995) record labels, and has worked as the art director for the Misanthropy records label (1997-2000) and others. In 2011 he created the Ideologic Organ record label in collaboration with Peter Rehberg / Editions Mego.

Wildly prolific, O’Malley’s oeuvre is defined by its remarkable breadth, complexity and multidisciplinary interests. It includes collaborations with a wide range of experimental musicians and composers, including Scott Walker, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Mats Gustafsson, Thurston Moore, Attila Csihar, Peter Rehberg, and Oren Ambarchi; French choreographer and theater director Gisèle Vienne; the authors Dennis Cooper & Alan Moore; contemporary composers Iancu Dumitrescu, Roger Tessier, Eyvind Kang and Alvin Lucier; Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov; American sculptor Banks Violette; Japanese sculptor Fujiko Nakaya; French artist Philippe Parreno; Swiss artists Emily Ding & Swiss arts collective KLAT (led by Jerome Massard); Italian performance artist Nico Vascellari; French photographer Estelle Hanania; Luxembourg’s filmmaker artists Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert; American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch; fashion designer Rick Owens; Belgian filmmaker Alexis Destoop; the electronic music institutions IRCAM (Paris), INA-GRM (Paris), EMS (Stockholm), and many others.

O’Malley is a vigorous live performer and has toured performing concerts constantly around the world since 2003. He has performed nearly 1000 events across the world, in venues ranging from the Domkirke in Bergen, Musée du Louvre in Paris, Foundation Serralves in Porto, and many theatres, clubs, venues, stages and museums across Europe, North America, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil. He performs extensively with his group SUNN but also with the D.A.C.M. theatre group, numerous solo concerts, and in a huge variety of constellations of collaborations with musicians and within his other groups.