Kali Malone – Burning Song
There's a distinct tone of positivity and possibility on Kali Malone's latest album – an unexpected transformation to an already immense collection of works
Kali Malone’s playing can shake the very foundations of the church which houses the organ she has taken her mastery to. Her long, sustained chords – often mapped out on mathematical matrices, and which she described in a recent interview as intended to never give “a clear sense of meter” – usually come with a progressing sense of mournfulness and foreboding. The compositions of Burning Song, played on the Bach Organ of Thomaskirche in Leipzig, retain Malone’s control of durational expanse, while unlocking a newfound degree of accessibility and hope.
Part of this could be down to Malone’s widening palette of resource and ever-strengthening creative relationships. Fellow boundary-pushing musicians Lucy Railton and Stephen O’Malley – partners in art (and, importantly, in friendship, love and life) across multiple projects, but particularly in perfect tandem with Malone’s playing on the enveloping drone of Bells On a Branch – form a doorway in the centre of Burning Song.
As the album moves from the relief and release of Crawling Ashore to closer My Eve My Dawn, the total eclipse we come to expect from the heaving lungs of Malone’s instrument cracks with light, the chords brightening with the distinct tone of positivity and possibility – an unexpected transformation in an already immense collected works.
Listen to: Map the Path, Crawling Ashore, My Eve My Dawn