Stephen O'Malley & Anthony Pateras Sept Duos Pour Guitar Acoustique Et Piano Préparé

The intimate familiarity of friendship and long-running collaboration oozes from the fine-tuned steel
strings and prepared piano notes of O’Malley & Pateras’ 2nd collaborative album; a glacial, moonlit homage to
departed pals - RIYL Morton Feldman, Michael Pisaro, Loren Connors, Keiji Haino...
‘Sept duos pour guitar acoustique et piano préparé’ continues a longstanding creative union deepened on the
2011-2016 recordings featured on their ‘Rêve Noir’ debut. This new album cleanly swaps out electro-acoustic
experimentation for a more plaintive dialogue of O’Malley’s just-intoned strings and the vaporous overtones
of Pateras’ prepared piano, which are left to linger in the air with an unhurried conversational quality that
draws us right into their mood.
In fact, the album features O’Malley’s most extensive recordings on steel string acoustic guitar (playing an
instrument whose previous owners include Marissa Nadler and Glenn Jones), and is Pateras’ return to the
prepared piano, which he had rarely employed in recent years, after spending much of the first decade of the
21st century exploring its possibilities. Recorded during a period when the duo were each grieving the loss of
recently departed friends and collaborators, these seven pieces possess a reflective, at times almost mournful
quality.
Album opener ‘déjà rêvé’ faithfully characterises the duo’s approach to patiently unfolding minimalism with
O’Malley’s metallic/acoustic gestures slowly chiming in mid-air with the wilting off key softness of Pateras’
prepared piano, operating to no meter or tempo other than the ponderous speed of late night thought.
Unadorned and shy of tricks or stunts, the pathos of their music is stark and enhanced by an inherent use of
alternate tuning systems and a sense of displacement from the norm.
The preceding parts make the penultimate ‘déjà trouvé’ feel almost flush with pain, despite its ostensible
stillness, before they offer a sense of resolution with only the barest materials in ‘déjà raconte’ that
epitomises their long honed ability to make every deliberate note count. It’s a notable departure from either
artist’s work in recent years, taking cues from departed friends and musical allies for a solemn, reflective
work that’s measured with harmonic nuance.