Новое произведение Стивена О'Мэлли «Авакен» исследует тишину и длительность в коллаборации с Бэнкс Вайолетт

Stephen O’Malley’s name is synonymous with duration fascination. His performances with Sunn O))) seeming to stretch out indefinitely. The sprawling recordings he also makes with Äänipää, KTL, Khanate, and Æthenor, alongside recent collaborations with his partner Kali Malone, ask that listeners sit quietly as the music slowly unfolds over lengthy intervals. Named after a thousand-year-old tree on the Swedish island of Fårö, Avaeken is no different. Clocking in at forty-two minutes and formed of long, sustained tones that ebb and fluctuate, this work was initially composed by O’Malley for the Belgian electric guitar quartet Zwerm. It then accompanied Wish You Were Here, a site-specific exhibition by multi-disciplinary artist Banks Violette, featuring burning disco balls, strip-lighting chandeliers, and the phrase “The End” spaced out over multiple floors in TICK TACK, a brutalist space in Antwerp. Banks and O’Malley have been regular collaborators ever since a chance meeting in 2005, their shared tastes and interests evolving, revolving, and sometimes staying still. A pattern which seems reflected in this composition. Split into two parts, Avaeken, a homonym of ‘awaken’, moves steadily in and out of sync. Making microtonal adjustments with e-bows and slides to subtly alter the sounds emerging from warmed amplifiers, the two tracks pitch and pull listeners through low drones and simmering metallic notes which stretch out, pulse, bulge, and retreat as vibrations collide and harmonise, compliment and clash. It is in the wheelhouse of Éliane Radigue’s profound minimalist synthesizer compositions yet deviates from her extended pieces by breaking the two tracks into discrete sections, with each approximately four minutes in length. At times it sounds like the distant flutter of helicopter blades, at others the straining engine of a vehicle hungry to change gear. Movement always plays its part, with the guitars shifting in veracity, volume, tone, timbre, and time. When the sounds drop out, as they do every few minutes, you’re left with a vacancy. A loss. A void that seems to speak to the modern panic of existence: a need for our waning attentions to be immediately occupied. In those brief gaps in sound, we’re left to contend with our thoughts. It’s a studied listen. Not something that will block out the outside world but, rather, moves through it like a Cagean snake uncoiling through the landscape. In the intended space, these notes would fill the room, billowing out into each corner, pushing up against the ceiling. Here, they fill our heads. The space we inhabit potentially different each time we hear it. The longing implied in Violette’s exhibition title following the listener around. This isn’t a jolt awake; it’s a gentle progression through sculpted sound, reminding us of what it means to be present in a world of confluence and contradictions.