Avaeken

Description

The American experimental composer Stephen O'Malley releases Avaeken, two sides of immense, immersive, and self-destructive music, on Dais Records. The record retains a site-specific work: O'Malley installed Avaeken as part of Wish You Were Here, the exhibition by the renowned American artist Banks Violette, highlighting the tension between presence and absence, life and loss. Over the past two decades, O'Malley and Violette have developed a distinct language blending sound, space, and sculpture, which has resonated within the walls of world-renowned institutions, from the Guggenheim to the Centre Pompidou, as well as prestigious galleries such as Maureen Paley in London, the Gladstone Gallery in New York, and TICK TACK in Antwerp, this brutalist space where "Wish You Were Here" took place in early 2026. Released today on vinyl, Avaeken unfolds power and phenomena: low-frequency vibrations, deep oscillations, and phase cancellations that prove naturally effective in any environment. Violette's visual expression (the impossibility of positioning oneself in the face of the loss of a friend and the more general decline of culture) now adorns the cover of the vinyl and seems inseparable from O'Malley's sound, both remaining unresolved.