Photograph courtesy of Øyvind Rones
Stephen O’Malley is set to release a limited, vinyl-only LP named Fuck Fundamentalist Pigs.
The release, which is limited to 700 individually hand-numbered copies, is described as “Stephen O’Malley’s crushing, personal and intensely emotive retort to the fascists and fundamentalists who undermine his and our sense of personal liberty and freedom, particularly in the wake of attacks suffered by Charlie Hebdo magazine and the residents of Paris during late 2015, and the countless poor souls who’ve suffered in the Middle East, Kenya and North Africa.”
The original recordings were made days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris earlier this year and were intended to be released in Spring of next year. In light of the recent November 13 terror attacks in Paris, O’Malley brought forward the release. You can read O’Malley’s full account on the release below and get it here. All profits from purchasing the record will be donated to the French Red Cross.
“On 8 January 2015, the day following the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris (the city I have called home for the last 8 years), I started a week long tour of Norway. During this jaunt I faced the toxic reality daily of the horrible blossoming events intermittently via television. These sense of distance was both fortunate and painful … a fortunate sense of partial detachment both welcome and shameful. The Trondheim concert on 9 January (depicted here) happened on a particularly intense day in this timeline … and was personally a true example of the purging power of immersion in music.
Through a web of emotions resolving distance, disintegration, the intense power of the moment and the brutal fundamentalist, cultural and psychological aspects behind … And today the recent horror of 13 November in Paris we experienced… to say many of these thoughts intensified is an understatement. The seemingly basic outrage of the title I chose for this album seemed more apt as a cry of liberty, a small, crude attempt at the spirit of Darkthrone’s timeless statement « With my art I am the fist. In the face of god. » . Like most of us I have also sometimes fallen for the constant baiting toward anger, outrage, paranoia and fear in the daily life, often but not always misdirected, but it is not debilitating by any means.
It’s clear that as an experimental guitar player I have absolutely no political power (or even ability to articulate in those forms) but it’s important to take the opportunity to say « fuck you » in these situations. To the facist & fundamentalist movements. To the absurding of the worst sides of monotheistic belief systems. And not only the perpetrators behind these events but also on other sides including the reactive and opportunistic. Those with most to gain are the underlying authoritarians in our own societies who have opportunities to implement and increase their control even further for their gains. The « security » changes we face in fact may also result in yet further increase in the loss of liberty and freedom.
The reactions aimed toward increased separation of cultures, xenophobia, nationalism, and especially racism are highly regrettable. I hope these recordings offer a small sense of solace in the time, even for the few hundred who hear them. I know they (and this text) are ultimately useless but … I am moved and shaken. I sincerely hope my point of view evolves out of what I have written above. For the concert on this record we had a massive backline with beautiful vintage Hiwatt amplifiers, and two PAs (including a Funktion One) in the small venue Blæst, the night hosted by Nymusikk. Immersion. Bliss. This record is actually the third part of a trilogy of live solo guitar records we intended to be released on iDEAL during spring 2016… but we were able to fast-forward due to the timeliness and by personal request.”
