Stephen O’ Malley is standing still. Time is standing still. It seems like an eternity ago, O’Malley struck a chord on his clear perspex guitar. The earth shuddered under its enormous weight. Infinite fractal frequencies splintered from the wall of amplification that fills the stage of the Brudenell. Since then, fragments of sound have hung in the air in an eternal sustain. The resonating sound is more than a hum, more than a drone, but something of cosmic proportions. No-one moves, at least not visibly. It’s all happening inside, under the skin. My shoulder blades, my kneecaps, my toes are vibrating. The audience is enveloped in the most immense, all-consuming sound.
I’m wearing earplugs – of course I am – as is everyone else, but nothing can prevent the vast sound from penetrating every inch of one’s being. My scrotum is tingling. O’Malley hangs his hand above the strings and looks as though he’s about to land another chord. Instead, he hesitates for what may be another minute, or maybe ten. Or an hour. He gently coaxes more energy from the straining neck of his instrument and the apocalyptic onslaught rages unabated. Then... only then does he brush his fingers across the strings, unleashing another tsunami of noise. It’s truly spellbinding.
Support act, Kogumaza had been impressive. Neither drone nor doom, post-rock or folk, but amalgamating elements of all four in a sound that assimilates the entirety of Earth’s output and incorporates myriad additional reference points, even including The Beatles. Huddled into a tiny space in front of the stage, the trio’s twin guitar attack is driven by some incredible drumming. Slow, minimal and often counter-rhythmic in style, she uses the cymbals sparingly, providing moments of crashing impact to the riffs that emerge sporadically and often unexpectedly from the hovering drone.
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But no-one crowded forward for O’Malley, the man whose legend as the core member of doom drone masters Sunn O))) is synonymous with extreme volume. No-one is foolish enough to lean on the front of the stage: their faces would likely melt if exposed to a direct blast of those obliterative frequencies. You’d fare better standing next to a supernova, and playing the illustrious Brudenell as part of the two-week Recon festival which straddles Leeds and Bradford, O’Malley delivers exactly what everyone has come for: bowel-trembling, organ-liquefying volume. The backline is spectacular, and O’Malley stands to the side of the stage, granting the audience an unobscured view of the wall of power, only occasionally stepping out of the shadows to tweak a knob here or there, yielding additional layers of glorious and excruciating aural torture.
Above anything, though, the experience is euphoric. There’s nothing to do but submit completely. It’s a strange, but wonderful sensation.
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