Today we’re listening to Kali Malone, an American organist, synthesist, and composer from Colorado. We’ve recommended her music three times before. She sang choir growing up and also played piano and guitar; she also spent time “busking, sleeping on beaches, crashing at weed farms, bartering,” to quote Blackbird Spyplane’s excellent interview with Malone. After a chance encounter with the composer Ellen Arkbro in New York, she relocated to Stockholm and enrolled in the Royal College of Music.1 She studied historic tuning, with a focus on church organs. Her new record, Burning Song, came out on Friday. It was recorded at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig on the “Bach organ,” a replica of the 1696 organ J.S. Bach’s uncle designed and which influenced the young composer.2 Like her preceding records, Burning Song draws out the organ’s notes, demonstrating the “unequal temperament” or variable frequency graduations across this particular instrument. The performance, with Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley (guitar) and Lucy Railton (cello), was captured on 20 microphones, placed close up to the organ and across the room, creating an immersive listening experience. All that said, Laura Snapes wrote in the Guardian, “In drone world, Burning Song is Kali Malone’s pop record.” By contrast, Does Spring Hide Its Joy, Malone’s record from 2023 with the same accompanists, is over five hours.
Burning Song - Kali Malone (40m, no vocals)
Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal
Does Spring Hide Its Joy - Kali Malone (303m, no vocals)
Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal
We wish you a great start to your week.
