STEPHEN O’MALLEY & Z’EV Magistral CD (2007)

Stephen O'Malley exists in a space where drone metal dissolves into pure conceptual sound, and Z'EV spent decades turning percussion into something closer to ritual than rhythm. Together, they made something that doesn't sit comfortably in any genre, which is exactly the point.

Recorded in 2007, Magistral is the kind of collaboration that only happens when two artists are operating on the same frequency, one rooted in the slow-crush tonnage of Sunn O))) and Burning Witch, the other in industrial noise and body music that predates the genre having a name. The result is heavy in ways that have nothing to do with riffs. It's weight as atmosphere, drone as architecture. This is music for the back of a dark room, not the front of a stage.

CD format, USA pressing, 2007. Out of print and worth hunting down.

Fans of: Sunn O))), Boris, Zonal, Burning Witch, Sumac