All Life Long

Kali Malone

Released on 09/02/2024 by Ideologic Organ
Main artists: Kali Malone
Genre: Classical
Distinctions: Pitchfork: Best New Music

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Stockholm-based American minimalist composer Kali Malone is a master at evoking immersive environments. Best known for her organ dirges, particularly those on her 2019 recording The Sacrificial Code, Malone has traveled the world to play historical pipe organs tuned in meantone temperament at Église réformée Saint-François in Lausanne, Switzerland; Orgelpark in Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden.

All Life Long opens with "Passage Through the Spheres" which focuses on another of her compositional talents—writing haunting plainsong-like choral music. Performed by Macadam Ensemble and conducted by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes, France, these unaccompanied intertwining parts for mostly male voices has the feel of a medieval religious chant as it echoes through the 15th century cathedral.

Anxious not to be pegged as just a composer for organ, Malone writes for horns in "No Sun to Burn (for brass)." Recorded at the Bunker Studio in New York City by the Anima Brass Quintet, this short tone poem-like piece transposes Malone's methods on organ, creating an undulating soundscape with the sharper brass harmonies. Malone's fascination with the different timbres and resonances of organs, and her preference for a slow, measured pace, unfolds with the solemnity of religious music in "All Life Long (for organ)."

But Malone's core system of belief is faith in her own artistic choices. She is dedicated to evoking moods or what she's described as a "foundation of evolving harmonic cycles that draw out latent emotional resonances." Creating drones is one of her favored techniques, as in "Fastened Maze" where she slowly but surely moves from hushed chord to chord. The allusively titled "Prisoned on Watery Shore" also depends on a very deliberate progression. Malone lingers on each chord, allowing the static, pulsing changes to fully sink it. The overall effect is a continuous ambient veil of sound from the patient, intense explorer who is creating her own unique musical universe. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

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All Life Long

Kali Malone

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Passage Through The Spheres

00:06:48

Mute Song, MusicPublisher - Jean-Manuel Candenot, AssociatedPerformer - Étienne Ferchaud, Conductor - Bruno Le Levreur, AssociatedPerformer - Stephen O'Malley, Producer - Kali Malone, Composer, Producer, MainArtist - Matthieu Le Levreur, AssociatedPerformer - Benjamin Ingrao, AssociatedPerformer