Pitchfork: Khanate Break Up, Sunn 0))) Tour

Stephen O'Malley now has one less band to bang his luxurious head of curls to, as his doom metal quartet Khanate have called it quits. O'Malley posted the following message on his website yesterday:

"Recent discussions have dictated a direction where Khanate has called it a day. Thanks for the six years of attention, interest, touring, megastructure and tension. We will continue to pursue the release of our 4th studio work (which is in the mixing phase) and the Japanese reissues of our first two releases, via Daymare."

Khanate, which featured O'Malley's glacially-paced guitar, Alan Dubin's bellowing, James Plotkin's bowl-scraping bass, and Tim Wyskida's rumbling drums, released three albums, a remix 12", a DVD, and sundry other eeeeeeeeevil items during its six-year history.

However, O'Malley has plenty of other projects to keep him busy. His popular group Sunn 0))) will release Altar, a collaborative LP created with Japanese juggernaut Boris, on October 31 on Southern Lord, and Sunn 0))) will tour the West Coast and the UK in October.

O'Malley also recently partnered with electronic noize destroyer Peter Rehberg (aka Pita) under the name KTL to create the soundtrack to the performance piece Kindertotenlieder. Kindertotenlieder, which will premiere on February 28, 2007 at France's Festival Les Antipodes, is a collaboration between performance artist Gisèle Vienne and author Dennis Cooper. The soundtrack ("recorded in a resistance fortress in southern France during a thunderstorm" and "in a wintergarden drenched in the sunlight") will be released on Editions Mego on October 6. (A double-vinyl version is due in the future on Aurora Borealis.)

KTL tracklist:

01 Estranged
02 Forest Floor 1
03 Forest Floor 2
04 Forest Floor 3
05 Forest Floor 4
06 Snow

Sunn 0)) tour dates:

10-03 San Francisco, California - Fillmore *
10-04 San Diego, California - House of Blues *
10-05 Anaheim, California - House of Blues *
10-06 Los Angeles, California - House of Blues *
10-08 Phoenix, Arizona - Marquee Theater *
10-09 Las Vegas, Nevada - House of Blues *
10-13 London, England - Hippodrome (Frieze Festival)
10-15 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC2
10-16 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Black Box
10-17 Dublin, Ireland - Crawdaddy
10-19 Galway, Ireland - Richards Bar
10-20 Cork, Ireland - Cypress Avenue

* with Celtic Frost, Goatwhore

Sunn 0))'s core duo of O'Malley and Greg Anderson will be joined by vocalist Attila of Mayhem, Tormentor, and Aborym, Mark D. of the Melvins, and Steve Moore on the American dates, and by Mark D., Attila, Bill Herzog, Tos Nieuwenhuizen, and, holy shit, Justin Broadrick of Godflesh/Napalm Death/Jesu/etc. on the UK leg.