The Organic Ideologies of Stephen O’Malley
Stephen O’Malley
Not just because Sunn O))), the band he formed with Greg Anderson in 1998, has somehow managed to singularly travel beyond the tight confines of metal in which it was birthed to prick up those ears usually inclined towards avant-garde composition or electronic music. Not just because of his prolific output outside of Sunn O))), and, particularly, his ceaseless creative collaborations with artists as diverse as Peter Rehberg, Merzbow, Alan Moore, FM Einheit, Iancu Dumitrescu, and Nurse With Wound. But also because he has become something of a beacon, shining a light across the spectrum of twentieth and twenty-first century music via the rich contents of his blog and, for the past two years, via his record label, Ideologic Organ, which has now expanded into an occasional series of concerts at London’s Café Oto. He kindly took time out on Easter Sunday to chat with Musique Machine about his curatorial approach to the label to reveal some of the reasons behind the valuable signposts he erects. But first, there’s a question of volume…
m[m]: You played Dunk Festival (Belgium) the other night and I noticed on your Twitter feed that there were volume restrictions - you suggested that you’re increasingly finding this to be a problem.
SOMA: Oh yea, across Europe – well, it was a new one across Belgium that apparently went into effect on January 1st and it’s a shame because Belgium and Benelux has always been the motherland for loud bands. It’s a huge scene, especially in Brussels; we’ve done some incredible things there with Sunn. This festival, they were victims of this [law] – apparently it can’t be over 102 dB which is pretty difficult to keep if you have amplified guitars… the festival had police there monitoring – it was shit!
But the festival was great and the people were fine… apparently I was the odd one out because all the other bands were playing at 100 dB - I don’t know how that’s possible, maybe I’m deaf or something, and can’t imagine how to play at such a low volume.
m[m]: Yea, it’s one of the key elements you’re aiming for, of course.
SOMA: Anyway, I improvised like a quieter ebow guitar piece - it worked out okay, but if I knew that was going to happen I wouldn’t have played. It’s not because I can’t do that, it’s just unfortunate to have to be put on the spot – suddenly I’m a problem y’know? I don’t want to create a problem, … it’s really about [the] pleasure of this engulfing physicality, certainly with my approach.
That show was on Friday night, [the following] night Swans were playing in Antwerp and people were talking about “yea, I’m going to Swans tomorrow night” – I’m like “how’s that gonna work?!” Swans are a fucking loud band y’know? That’s not gonna work!” … I’m curious to find out how that went down… and I’m curious about what will happen in the long run. It could really damage the underground music culture up there. It could encourage a new form of music to come out of Belgium. Some sort of different type of music as well that fits within the lower volume, maybe it’s a turning point in the long run?
m[m]: Well, it would be a shame – it’s one thing to experiment with quiet music, but to be influenced by the law as opposed to be influenced by your own muse, it’s a sad thing.
Anyway, we’re here to talk about your label, Ideologic Organ; but, as this is not your first record label I thought we could begin our conversation talking about your earliest experiences with running a label. I think in the mid-nineties, you art director for Misanthropy Records?
SOMA: Yea, actually that wasn’t the first thing, I used to do a fanzine with a man called Tyler Davis and called Descent Magazine throughout the nineties but there was a point in ’95 when we started releasing a few CDs and vinyls under the name ‘The Ajna Offensive’ and that label’s still going. When I was involved in it we did some good things - it was purely a mail order, pre-internet, make flyers and send them out type of thing - but Tyler’s really taken it far now, he releases a lot of amazing bands.
m[m]: Aluk Todolo are on there?
SOMA: Yea, he put them out in the States, put out Deathspell Omega in the US, that’s kinda top of the totem pole right now for that kind of music. Actually not even right now, in the last ten years.
That was my first experience, we were like twenty years old, and then I was invited to be the art director for
Misanthropy Records which was in Suffolk (UK) in ’97 and I moved out there and worked for a year. My involvement with that label was purely design, … and then in 1998, I was living in LA and Greg Anderson started Southern Lord and I was involved with that in the early period and then I moved to New York and continued doing design for him as well, and figuring out aesthetic principles for the label and that continued until 2007. Yea, those are the three labels I worked for but that’s over the course of ten years. And when I lived in New York I was working in a couple of advertising agencies so that was like a heavily design-centric time for me – that was my lifestyle.
m[m]: So did you train as a graphic designer?
SOMA: Yea, I went to university and did basic art stuff. I wish I had studied more about it ‘cause I became really inspired, I get more and more into typography as time goes on.
Anyway Ideologic Organ is simply a partnership with Editions Mego. Peter Rehberg, he was working with John from Emeralds on the Spectrum Spools sub-label for about a year and he decided to offer that kinda trading role to a couple of other people and he asked me if I wanted to do something. Peter and I do a lot of music together in different projects so, I said “yes” and I’ve been trying to build my stay up so far [by] curating with conceptual music from composers who are not known so well, especially in vinyl format and to bring other recordings into the vinyl format that I’ve found to be interesting and maybe rare to find. It’s not a reissue label but there has been a couple of things like that on the label and I think the vitality of that stuff can be really inspiring – people who are musicians or super sound heads, y’know!
m[m]: The name, which you’ve also used for publishing and your blog, is unusual. I take it to mean a physical extension of your body – another limb say – whose function is perhaps to indicate your ideology or ideologies. What does it mean and how did you conceive of the name?
SOMA: I didn’t come up with the word, but it’s something I‘ve used for my blog since 2003 when I started that. In a way it’s a self-fulfilling adverb [laughs] - you know you go through with your ideology, no matter what it is, to create truth out of your ideas – that’s a stretch on the actual definition, but it’s kinda the way I see it, it’s like manifest destiny or something like that.
m[m]: As ideologies go, the first pair of releases seemed to suggest a vinyl-only label that re-released overlooked gems primarily concerned with, what I think you described as “acoustic spectral music”?
SOMA: Which is how the first several releases were – if you had to tie together Phurpa and Eyvind Kang purely musically (there’s a lot of theoretical stuff that they would have in common but you don’t market a record on Buddhist theory, that would be ridiculous to do) it would be in that spectral, phenomenology area that could apply. Quite quickly that transferred into electric music when I did this Nurse With Wound collaboration, although I think that’s also related in that area of phenomenology amongst sound and of course Akos Rozmann is somewhere between those two realms, so may be I should have said “electro-acoustic” earlier on but then that phrase has got so tied to certain mindsets and so much baggage. It’s hard to describe an overall arc, I’ve done some interviews about the label where I’ve simply said “it’s music that is interesting to me that I think other people will be interested in,” and people aren’t satisfied with that – they want a solid reason and the only way I can respond to that is “maybe I’m not the right person to do a business of selling something” [laughs]. And, this has been a problem with the other labels I’ve been involved in [where] the business side I can handle, but the curatorial side is much more interesting [and] of course, that’s the least responsible part as far as sustaining the business. But this partnership is cool with Peter because the distribution’s built in, we have all the manufacturing and mastering contacts set up and everything, and he’s an incredible businessman for the type of business we’re offering. So I can be a little less responsible for that side but you have to be wise with your decisions because you don’t want it to be completely foreign to people because then no one wants to take the risk of spending 20 euros on a double LP. But I think there’s a good medium right now with the label - it’s quite small – y’know selling 1,000 is a lot for most of these releases, that is a lot of copies to sell of Akos Rozmann you know.
Even Norbert Möslang, if you’re into noise music he’s kinda well known in that scene in Europe but surprisingly his recordings aren’t easy to find, they’re all from small presses - like Ideologic Organ actually - but his recording output career has been sustained by this calendar of small editions over the years. Maybe it’s pleasant for record collector people to follow, but it’s not like there’s a catalogue of items of Voice Crack available in stores. And the man continues to make really interesting music, that’s the first thing.
m[m]: You mentioned earlier that the initial releases (Phurpa’s LP, Kang & Jessika Kenney’s Aestuarium) and later Akos Rozmann’s LP have Tibetan influences. How important is spiritual or devotional aspects to the music you enjoy?
SOMA: Well it’s important to the musician more than myself. Of course, I do have an interest in that side of things, I’m not a Buddhist but I am intensely interested in ceremonial rites, different paths of spirituality or magick or occult. Where Phurpa is focussing with the Bon tradition that is a really tasty meld of all of those things – spirituality, black magick or magick, occult, and stuff like this because the form itself - they’re devotional rites, in fact the music is power music so these Russian guys are trying to interpret it in an anthropological way, y’know correctly, but of course they’re modern people living in Moscow and they have their own viewpoint on it and we have our own cultural viewpoint on these things where it seems like very intensely dark music to some people. Who knows what it was like in 500BC in Tibet - what kind of emotional or ethical overtone it had, if any. Maybe it was a purely natural approach more to do with living at 10,000 feet in nature, I don’t know, I’ve never had that experience I’ve always been an urban person, so, it’s more theoretical to me all the time. But they have some very interesting colours.
Eyvind Kang I know quite well as a friend so we’ve had a lot of discussions, but this man is so intensely curious about so many topics it’s kind of idiosyncratic - when you see someone with this mass of curiosity and interact every six months and then suddenly you’re with them for two to three days and they’ve all of these new topics, new names, poets, philosophers, Chinese techniques. But overall the character of this person is intensely open to the energies of the universe, and that is what comes across in the music.
Akos Rozmann I’ve never met but the guy who takes care of his musical estate is Mats Lindström who I’ve also released, and I’ve talked to him about Rozmann a lot, and, of course, read a lot -apparently he was a practicing Buddhist so it was also important in his own ideology as well as far as composing. The piece I released was part of a cycle on the Buddhist calendar, I’m not sure in what way but I assume it was mathematically-based. Like going through the mind of an electronic musician [or] concrète composer it’s interesting how these things meld, like John Cage was very interested in Eastern systems as well, I think it’s more about the system or maybe it’s the system is almost as important as the spirituality in some cases, seeing as musicians and composers are open to mathematical structure of course.
m[m]: Sure, and it’s just as much about the process design as it is about what outputs from that process, I guess. I noted that on the latest KTL release you recorded at famous electro-acoustic studios: EMS (Elektronmusikstudio) in Stockholm and also at GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) there in Paris, and over time there has been many parallels drawn between your own music, particularly in Sunn O))), and some aspects of modern composition, minimalism etc. (for example, La Monte Young’s sustained tones). So I wondered when starting Sunn O))) how aware were you of the history of Twentieth Century avant garde classical music – was that an early stage influence or did you become aware of that part of musical history in parallel?
SOMA: I was aware of [composers like] Ligeti, sort of pre-minimalist I suppose, but I didn’t become aware of Tony Conrad or La Monte Young, Rhys Chatham, these types of people, until Sunn was going and then they were brought to my attention. Actually, the editor of The Wire, asked me about La Monte Young, I’d heard his name living in New York at the time but I hadn’t heard the music, and he was like “oh man you gotta listen to him ‘cause I see some ties here,” so I have to thank him, Chris Bohn, for introducing me to La Monte Young. Funny to say that, but, anyway, I’m not going to put any more pretence on Sunn’s music [laughs] than needs to happen, there’s already plenty there! I mean Greg and I were starting [Sunn] because we loved the Melvins, Earth and we loved playing together ourselves – that’s the most important thing, it’s the relation of Greg and myself as players – we’ve played in other groups before and we were trying to do something new together and, well, I’m a huge music fan, like yourself - the curiosity and the pleasure of discovering something that you can connect with in some oblique or some direct way is paramount. It’s why you write about music, it’s why I play music, write about music, release records and stuff, this is the point. And another extension of that is - okay I’ve connected with this music and now maybe I’ll transmit that to someone else who can access it too and continue spreading this. I’ve gone through so many things in the past ten years because of the external influence of people telling me what they think about music and connections versus my own experience and then a fabrication of a third combination of that which exists in the mythology of the group, but I think the most important thing over time is realising that as a musician you’re a continuation of many other artists work, it’s a responsibility to show those influences and study those things. Okay, there’s La Monte Young but there’s also Hindustani music and Carnatic music which I’ve been really inspired by, and then, continuing historically through these things, there are all of these branches from La Monte Young like John Cale’s early works and all the Theater of Eternal Music people basically. Eventually meeting someone like Phill Niblock, talking to him about things and realising yea, he’s a dude y’know – the guy likes to drink wine and we’re playing the same festival – KTL and Phill Niblock – it’s great! “Nice to see you again, sir!” y’know? I hope I’m kicking as much ass as you are when I’m eighty - there are many, many facets to all of this.
m[m]: It’s interesting because when I first saw you play, I think it was the first ATP Festival to feature Sunn (curated by Autechre in 2003) and at the time I wasn’t into anything you could describe as metal, although I’d dabbled here and there, so to speak…
SOMA: Dabbled? It sounds like a drug! [laughs]
m[m]: Yea, it seems to me that throughout the noughties Sunn were on their own in being a revitalising force for metal, allowing it to perhaps be taken seriously once more as a progressive art form (and like I say people were aligning it with the minimalists: La Monte Young, Tony Conrad etc.) and I guess it encouraged me to re-connect with some rock music after years of writing off traditional guitar/bass/drums formulations as a bit ‘old hat’ if you like. Did you feel alone, like sole campaigners for metal’s continuing artistic relevance?
SOMA: No, it wasn’t so ‘conquistador’ as that – to actually clarify what was really going on [laughs] the stuff we were working on in the nineties, things like Burning Witch, Thorr’s Hammer and early Sunn was not really recognised until later. In fact, that ATP, maybe it was that alignment of Autechre and the other modern musicians, and there were so many: Yasunao Tone played, Florian Hecker, all the Mego people – it was an incredible line-up. In my opinion it’s one of the best ATP line-ups I’ve seen and they’ve had some amazing line-ups. But putting us in that context was like changing the lens from close-up on a heavy metal band, or a death metal band – slow death metal, so a doom metal band – to opening up this wide angle lens. Actually the whole surrounding picture can be more interesting and where we fit inside that landscape there are lots of ways of looking at it for people who are open minded. And literally, man, that was like a doorway for us that opened and then The Wire was involved, electronic musicians and fans saw something there, it was a big change and once that happened all these other things got thrown on the bonfire. Because the first couple of Sunn records came out in 2000, Sunn’s like a twenty-first century band on record, in fact, and they were panned, man. The first album, 00Void, was released by Rise Above Records which was run by Lee Dorian, one of the first supporters of Sunn for various reasons, but the Sunn album was their very first collaboration with Music for Nations’ P&D deal [laughs] and so they delivered that album to the A&R guy at Music for Nations – “okay, here’s the first thing we want to do with you guys”, and the guy was like “is this a practical joke? This is bullshit basically”. That was the parent label thing, and I remember reviews about that in 2000 like Kerrang magazine gave us zero, they were like “this is fucking crap”. But then a few years later they gave us five on another album, you know it’s a big lesson in the timidity of the press. But it’s really good because the growth of interest was real - it’s not marketing y’know, this sort of systematic build-up of the group, it was real. Also the fans that came from the metal side, who may have known about it or known about our other groups in the nineties, it’s a very, very real tangible support base for Sunn. It‘s not like a pop, flash-in the-pan, … they followed the growth of the group and they’re interested to see how it continues to grow.
m[m]: I think people learn how to listen and when something’s very different like you guys were in the early noughties it takes a while for people to learn how to absorb it. It’s not as straight forward as listening to something that’s a lot more familiar, that’s more of a genre if you like?
SOMA: I just know from myself that my hearing and my ability of listening and focussing changes all the time and as a music fan I love that because, yea, it’s a learning process and you can really become more educated in a lot of different aspects - not just the band or the music itself but the continuity of music and theoretical things - what is happening with sound or the history of it and hearing influences coming through that you recognise.
m[m]: You mentioned the first Sunn album, that was the album that you gave to Nurse With Wound to remix that you’ve re-released. I read their brief was to come up with something along the lines of ‘Soliloquoy for Lilith’, which also has parallels with La Monte Young. Given the brief, I guess you were surprised at the results?
SOMA: It wasn’t so straight forward as that. I mean you don’t really place an order with Steven Stapleton, but the conversations I had with him and Colin Potter were, y’know, these are Nurse records which I particularly admire and the Soliloquoy one was one of them. There’s one Sunn tour we were driving round in the South West US and we were going through the desert in Arizona listening to that record and it was so extra terrestrial and struck me as a strong memory of listening to music in a time and place environment and having it click – I told them that story but I didn’t know what to expect . It was really amazing to get those mixes and, actually, they really did some archaeology on the masters because there are lots of elements we had mixed very differently on the album which were brought forward, like the vocals, and then of course their processing and re-interpretation is beautiful I think. Although there was mixed reactions from Greg and myself, which kind of sustained the chemistry that makes Sunn the way it is, where we have our different points of view [which] are not always in parallel in our tastes, but coming together on those things is what makes Sunn what it is. And it was that way with that record too, so they went back and re-did one track because of that for us - very generously - but it’s a magnificent work, I think it’s really special. And it’s interesting to listen to something like that after these other genius artists have interpreted our thing and then to hear what remains in common.
m[m]: Steven Stapleton played as part of Sunn some years back at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and Nurse With Wound supported Sunn last year in London, while Colin Potter played an amazing set at one of your Ideologic Organ nights at Café Oto. Is this relationship continuing in the future?
SOMA: I’d love that. We don’t have any concrete plans yet, but it seems that each time we meet there’s a really nice rapport, there’s nothing concrete though, I’d like it, I mean I’m a fan. I played with Nurse With Wound for one show, in Dublin in 2007 or 2008.
m[m]: The Electronic Music Festival, DEMF?
SOMA: Yea, that’s right, which was kind of fun and hilarious. Just being on stage with them then you realise they’re really enjoying doing their thing together; it’s pretty Fluxus actually [laughs].
m[m]: I’ve been lucky enough to go to all of your Ideologic Organ nights so far and I’m looking forward to next one in a couple of weeks time. What led to this occasional series of shows and why Café Oto?
SOMA: John from Oto wrote me a message and it was like “What do you think about curating a series of concerts around your label?” and that happened really early too, I think I’d only put out a three or four of records, “Yes! Perfect!” – that’s a good place for a lot of these artists to do something, especially ones who haven’t played in London very much. It’s a good size for these artists, and the audience that goes to that venue they’re very into that music, they’re not going to party or for other reasons - people are going to listen to stuff. Sso that was pretty fortunate, I consider that to be a very positive thing in many ways, especially the timing.
m[m]: Are the forthcoming Gravetemple shows going to feature solo sets from each player?
SOMA:No, but there will be one support for each night. The first night is Russell Haswell, and the second night is Crys Cole, she’s from Winnipeg and does really low, quiet music, sort of textural electro-acoustic music – let’s use that word now [laughs] – a safe word!
m[m]: I use it a lot these days I must admit.
SOMA: Well everything is electro-acoustic … this phone I’m talking into is electro-acoustic! So we have on the one hand, I don’t know what Russell will do but on the times I’ve seen him it’s been pretty aggressive, Crys will be a different flavour and my idea is that Gravetemple will definitely be doing different things each night, perhaps it will contrast or parallel with the support acts.
m[m]: Do you get the sense that both the label and the shows are establishing some kind of sense of community?
SOMA: Oh, I don’t know, that’s something that you have to look at in the past, you know. I don’t know, I don’t think so yet, to be honest, maybe with people like yourself who go to all the shows maybe you’re interested in what the next ones are. I mean if you went to the last one and you’re still interested then that means you’re really interested [laughs].
m[m]: With Iancu Dumitrescu’s Hyperion Ensemble? It was awesome. And Mats Lindström in support! When am I going to get the opportunity to see all that kind of stuff? I feel so lucky to able to reach Café Oto and the sort of stuff it puts on.
SOMA: Yea, great, that’s perfect and I think that’s why it works there. ‘Cause their schedule’s already amazing, then you have a little lens on a series, that’s really nice.
m[m]: Have you got a fifth Ideologic Organ night planned?
SOMA: Not yet. I kind of take it step by step with both the label and the nights at Oto just because it’s a responsibility working with these people, I don’t want to be talking people into doing stuff, I want people to be into the idea. I don’t want to sell stuff like “oh, well there’s this record that I’ve just released so why don’t we put on this person and help promote the record” it’s not that way.
m[m]: I’ve been thinking that never before has the role of curator – this word that is getting used more and more in relation to labels in particular - it’s never been needed so much as now with the combination of cheaper recording and distribution technologies meaning we can all become quickly oversaturated with the vast amount of listening choices we now have.
Is part of having a label today due to a feeling of responsibility, perhaps, to help signpost stuff that might otherwise get drowned out by the overabundance of media in general?
SOMA: It’s a big topic this over saturation. Well you need a map to look through things like we were saying earlier about learning about Tony Conrad, La Monte Young and stuff after Sunn had started becoming more visible I guess. I needed people to tell me about that you know. I need my friends to advise me on new stuff, I need people that I know or who I trust know my taste a bit to advise me, I like that, that’s part of sharing the knowledge right? So, music fans need that too, when I was a kid I’d always buy stuff on Earache records at the time.
m[m]: Yea, I used to buy that stuff too.
SOMA: There was a period there in the late eighties, early nineties where I knew that each record would be somewhere in my tastes, before they put out Atari Teenage Riot or whatever it was and went in that direction. It was someone I could trust in my journey of exploration in music and my obsession, so, yea, the word curator is used more now than it was then. It’s kind of an appropriate word, though, I think. I mean when you go to an art exhibition there’s always a curator. Someone’s got to create a framework and when there’s oversaturation, well, maybe it’s not over saturation to people who are eighteen right now, they know how to navigate in a totally different way than I do, but it’s an opportunity to create a framework that people can try and relate to and maybe develop some trust and follow.
m[m]: I’m guessing you now get sent a load of demos?
SOMA: Oh my god, yea.
m[m]: And on top of your personal listening choices and the amount you need to do with your own music, how do you find the time to get through it all?
SOMA: I don’t, simply. Especially when you get five emails a week – and this is not much for a label I understand – emails with links, y’know “Here’s my new album on Soundcloud that’s 75 minutes long,” and, y’know, “We’re a string quartet from New York doing this and this…”, that’s great, but I’m sorry I didn’t find time to listen to it, and I probably won’t and it’s not because I’m not interested it’s just because, yea, the over saturation goes in that way too. Honestly, I’ve released less than 20 records on the label, that’s pretty specific, it’s not hundreds of albums. And there are plans – each decision to release something is a big step and takes a lot of work. There are several things I want to work on, I’m not saying don’t send any demos in, but, at our pace we‘re putting feelers out there and asking people we’re interested in already. I wish I could listen to everything – I was looking at Mute, at their website recently. I’m always curious about record label websites and what they say is their demo admission policy, some labels are like “don’t even bother”.
m[m]: A lot are like that and increasingly so.
SOMA: I mean, come on, you have a label like Blackest Ever Black, really in the present you know, people are focussing on them and paying attention to them, they must get tons of demos that sound like the bands they already put out. It’s like Peter tells me he gets tons of demos of guys trying to sound like Fennesz, from Lithuania and Poland and Germany and stuff, why would you want to do that? But it doesn’t mean you don’t respect music or anything it’s just practical. But Mute actually say on their website, they have an A&R address and they claim they listen to everything.
m[m]: Wow, I’m impressed!
SOMA: But Mute is not one person in their living room [laughs]. Mute is a big, established place.
m[m]: It’s effectively a major label, isn’t it? It’s grown from an independent into a major.
SOMA: Yea. But it’s brilliant because it still has the illusion of being independent. Daniel Miller’s thing y’know?
I wish I had more time to listen to music, that’s the point – demos, albums I buy, albums I want to find out about - I always wish I had more time. But I got, hopefully, another forty years to get into it!
m[m]: What are your feelings about the internet in relation to running the label. I imagine it’s a bitter sweet, but nonetheless essential?
SOMA: Exactly, well put. The label probably wouldn’t exist if people didn’t know about it through the internet. I don’t think any label would really, I mean it’s hard to find music not linked to the internet these days in some way. On the other hand there’s this whole Bandcamp phenomena and Soundcloud thing where, Greg Anderson from Sunn, he’s into that, he discovers all these bands on those platforms, I haven’t really got into that. It could be amazing. I’m still into the physical stuff. On the positive side of extreme saturation is the availability is there, so if you know how to navigate then it’s as many gems as going into the record shop and just flipping through whatever section you’re not familiar with and taking chances.
m[m]: Are you finding your releases on Ideologic Organ sell as well as downloads? I know they’re primarily released, more often than not, as vinyl only, but there’s always the option to buy the download. Does that work for you?
SOMA: Well, of course there are some sales that way. It’s not as much as I’ve experienced with my own band but it’s there. We don’t really have the resources to keep the catalogue in print and everything we release is essentially a one time pressing. There has been a couple of represses of a couple of the more in demand titles like the Sunn O))) / Nurse With Wound record but it’s expensive to press records so the choice is: do I repress this record, or do I release a new record by another artist or the same artists? Maybe we’ll get to a point where the label has enough funding to repress a bunch of stuff but we haven’t got there yet. In the meantime, if people are dying to hear Phurpa they can get the download and that’s kind of like time travel - you get a .flac download of music from 600BC y’know - it’s kind of weird. But that’s amazing; this is a positive side to internet.
m[m]: Yes, it keeps things alive, keeps an archive of things (as long as the site remains). I noticed on the vinyl side of things they’re always cut by Rashad Becker of Berlin’s Dubplates & Mastering – what is it about using them?
SOMA: Oh, they’re fantastic. I’ve had the best results in Europe with that studio for cutting vinyl. We worked with Rashad too on some Sunn records, with mixed results to be honest, but ultimately it was an extreme learning experience. This man knows what he’s doing scientifically and [I] learned a lot from his comments on process, and basically I love the results. The other company I like to work with, that I’ve just started working with, is CMS -Chicago Mastering Service - which is Bob Weston and another guy named Jason Ward. I haven’t worked with the other guy, I worked with Bob on a recent album I did which was great too. I’m sure there are other vinyl cutting engineers out there who are amazing, [I] just narrowed in on that studio, and the results have been great. Some of these pressings are 500 copies so it’s actually a luxury to have a studio like that. A lot of the money in the pressing goes into that process. But on the other hand, this is high quality sound on vinyl, I wouldn’t say it’s audiophile, but it’s really as good as we can possibly make it I think.
m[m]: Are you not tempted to release them on CD as well?
SOMA: There’s some talk or reissuing some stuff on CD, especially the stuff with Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney. That duo’s building up more of a live [thing], doing more tours and concerts and its kind of a shame I can’t supply them with records each time ‘cause people love it. I mean, you saw them play - it’s beautiful, it’s really different too. If I walked in on that concert I’d be like “fuck, I want to hear this album, I want this in my house, y’know?”
m[m]: Wasn’t that the one where Andrew Chalk supported and it was snowing outside?
SOMA: That was incredible. It was the first one; it was a good start, for sure. But it’s a resources thing, we talked about reissuing those records on CD [but] I’d love to be able to just reissue it on vinyl though – maybe we’ll wait to do that. I mean I don’t have plans to reissue anything right now. We’re trying to do some new pieces like the Gravetemple and Wold album are for April and then in September we’re doing another Akos Rozmann, a triple LP actually, which is kind of a reissue of this album ‘Images of the Dream and Death’ which came out on a Swedish label in the late seventies, I think, or the early eighties. That’s been very difficult to find, and I’m releasing [something by] Okkyung Lee, who’s a cello player from New York, it’s a solo cello record, it’s pretty cool. So, even having two releases in the pipeline is kind of enough at once for the resources.
m[m]: Well, that was my last question, to find out what was next for the label. Anything else you wanted to say?
SOMA: I’m just really grateful that people are paying attention to the label and that it’s able to sort of flourish in its own way. It’s really, from a ‘curator’ side, amazing to be able to work with these artists in this way. People are really appreciative of that kind of support. Although there’s this over saturation of everything online and digitally it may seem simple to release music these days, but in fact it’s quite hard to get a proper edition out there. Hopefully Ideologic Organ is doing that for these people in a way that becomes a part of the musical history of the artist in a serious way and also for the listener - you know the label as a pseudo serial thing which can be seen as a compartment of a point of view. Maybe people can relate to it overall like we were talking about. It would be amazing to have a label these days where someone thought about it in the same way we were talking about Earache when we were kids. [laughs] That’s a big fantasy, but, hey, I guess Editions Mego is like that for some people, Southern Lord is for sure – you know, like “I trust the label, I don’t know who Nails are or whatever Southern Lord is putting out, but I’ll buy it and check it out, man.” Discover something new and get psyched about it – I hope we can provide that role for some folks.
Many thanks go to Stephen O’Malley for all the time and effort he put into answering our many questions.
Ideologic Organ #4 sees Gravetemple (Stephen O’Malley, Oren Ambarchi and Attila Csihar) perform two consecutive nights at Café Oto, London on 13 and 14 April 2013. For more information visit: http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/
To keep up-to-date with all of Stephen’s activities, his blog can be found at: http://www.ideologic.org/
And for a full rundown of all releases on his Ideologic Record label visit: editionsmego.com/releases/ideologic-organ/
Photo credits: Front page sun glasses picture by Mathieu Drouet. Interview menu picture by Nuno Moreira. Live picture by Tom Medwell of Gravetemple show. Red & black cover artwork from Gravetemple’s forthcoming album Ambient/Ruin on Ideologic Records. Blurred underground picture by Randall Dunn , and lastly album artwork Wold’s upcoming release on Ideologic Record’s Freermasonry.