Stephen O’Malley is an American guitarist, composer and graphic designer, born in New Hampshire in 1974, raised in Seattle and long based in Paris. He was a founding member of Burning Witch in 1995 and in 1998 co-founded Sunn O))) with Greg Anderson, a group that turned the slowest end of metal into a ritual of amplified, sustained guitar drones played at overwhelming volume. Khanate followed in 2000 and the duo KTL in 2005.
In 2011 he launched the label Ideologic Organ with the late Peter Rehberg of Editions Mego, giving a home to organ music, contemporary composition and drone, including records by Kali Malone, with whom he has also performed in trio with the cellist Lucy Railton. Since the mid-1990s he has worked as an art director and designer, creating more than five hundred album covers for labels such as Southern Lord, 4AD and Editions Mego.