Kali Malone’s anticipated new album “All Life Long” is a collection of music for pipe organ, choir, and brass quintet composed by Kali Malone, 2020 - 2023. Choral music performed by Macadam Ensemble and conducted by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L’Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Brass quintet music performed by Anima Brass at The Bunker Studio in New York City. Organ music performed by Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley on the historical meantone tempered pipe organs at Église Saint-François in Lausanne, Orgelpark in Amsterdam, and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden.

Kali Malone composes with a rare clarity of vision. Her music is patient and focused, built on a foundation of evolving harmonic cycles that draw out latent emotional resonances. Time is a crucial factor: letting go of expectations of duration and breadth offers a chance to find a space of reflection and contemplation. In her hands, experimental reinterpretations of centuries-old polyphonic compositional methods become portals to new ways of perceiving sound, structure, and introspection. Though awe-inspiring in scope, the most remarkable thing about Malone’s music is the intimacy stirred by the close listening it encourages.

Malone’s new album All Life Long, created between 2020 - 2023, presents her first compositions for organ since 2019’s breakthrough album The Sacrificial Code alongside interrelated pieces for voice and brass performed by Macadam Ensemble and Anima Brass. Over the course of twelve pieces, harmonic themes and patterns recur, presented in altered forms and for varied instrumentation. They emerge and reemerge like echoes of their former selves, making the familiar uncanny. Propelled by lungs and breath rather than bellows and oscillators, Malone’s compositions for choir and brass take on expressive qualities that complicate the austerity that has defined her work, introducing lyricism and the beauty of human fallibility into music that has been driven by mechanical processes. At the same time, the works for organ, performed by Malone with additional accompaniment by Stephen O’Malley on four different organs dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, underscore the mighty, spectral power that those rigorous operations can achieve.

All Life Long simmers in an ever-shifting tension between repetition and variation. The pieces for brass, organ, and voice are alternated asymmetrically, providing nearly continuous timbral fluctuation across its 78-minute runtime even as thematic material reiterates. Each composition’s internal framework of fractal pattern permutations has the paradoxical effect of creating anticipated keystone moments of dramatic reverie and lulling the listener into believing in an illusory endlessness. On an even more granular level, the historical meantone tuning systems of each organ used, and the variable intonation of brass and voice, provide further points of emotional excavation within the harmony.

The titular composition “All Life Long” appears twice on the album, first as an extended canon for organ and again in the final quarter, compactly arranged for voice. In the latter, Malone pairs the music with “The Crying Water” by Arthur Symons, a poem steeped in language of mourning and eternity. For organ, “All Life Long” moves with a patient stateliness, the drama concentrated in moments when shifting tonalities generate and release dissonance and ecstasy. For voice, each word is saturated with feeling, the singers swooping gracefully downward to capture the melancholy of the narrator’s relationship to the timeless tears of the sea. “Passage Through The Spheres,” the album’s opening piece, contains lyrics in Italian pulled from Giorgio Agamban’s essay In Praise of Profanation. In it, Agamban defines profanation as, in part, the act of bringing back to communal, secular use that which has been segregated to the realm of the sacred, a process Malone enacts each time she performs on church organs.

This is not music of praise, or of spiritual revelation, but it is an artistic enactment of translating the indescribable. It carries the gravity of liturgical chant, and its fixation on the infinite, but draws its weight from the earthly realm of human experience. A music that draws the listener into the present moment where they can discover themselves within the interwoven musical patterns that can come to resemble the passage of days, weeks, years, a lifetime.

TRACK LISTING

1. Passage Through The Spheres
2. All Life Long (for Organ)
3. No Sun To Burn (for Brass)
4. Prisoned On Watery Shore
5. Retrograde Canon
6. Slow Of Faith
7. Fastened Maze
8. No Sun To Burn (for Organ)
9. All Life Long (for Voice)
10. Moving Forward
11. Formation Flight
12. The Unification Of Inner & Outer Life

Having each followed their own distinct trajectory of exploration for decades - interweaving rigorous experimentalism with diverse touchstones of cross-cultural expression - and building upon roughly 20 years working as a duo, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang return with Azure, their third full-length with Ideologic Organ. Among their most ambitious outings to date, comprising five new compositions recorded in Seattle during the Spring and Summer of 2022, this remarkable body of sonority draws upon the traditions of Persian ghazal, Korean poetry, Dhrupad, Javanese music, free improvisation, and numerous others, culminating as a singular gesture of contemporary Minimalism that glacially unfolds across the length of the LP.

Hailing from the Pacific North West, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang have retained a strong presence within the context of American experimental music since their emergence during the mid 1990s, each producing some of grippingly original music to have appeared over the subsequent years. Kenney is an experimental vocalist, composer, and teacher, focused on the transformative powers of the voice and sound’s relation to mystical experience. In addition to her collaborations with Oren Ambarchi, Tashi Wada, Avey Tare, Alvin Lucier, Sarah Davachi, Ensemble Nist-Nah, Sunn O))), and numerous others, she is known for her performance of Indonesian vocal music (sindhenan) and Persian vocal music (radifs), as well as her own compositions drawing on elements of both. Kang, a composer and multi-instrumentalist who is highly regarded for his unique approach to the viola, has worked extensively across numerous fields, appearing on albums by Bill Frisell, Joe McPhee, Sun City Girls, Wayne Horvitz , Ikue Mori, Laurie Anderson, Aki Onda, John Zorn, Blonde Redhead , William Hooker, Animal Collective , Lou Reed, Oren Ambarchi, and numerous others, as well creating as a striking body of solo works that incorporate elements of his Icelandic, Danish and Korean heritage.

A hypnotic return to Kenney and Kang’s unique expression of “unison music”, Azure is among the the duo’s most paired down and minimal efforts in more than a decade. It’s five composition are underscored by allusions to the natural world and drifting temporarily - “like a haze of light across the sky. The morning followed after watching the moon, then the sea” - producing a profound calm that rises in arcs of tonal colour.

The album’s opener, Eclipse, is a composition built around the phrase “inside the eclipse”, drawn from Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s novel, Dictee, and follows the Korean American writer’s suggestions of method and technique. Leaving aching silences between each utterance - Kenney’s sparse vocal interventions mirrored by Kang’s delicate viola tones - the piece’s collective elements produces a remarkable tension, bubbling within its spacious calm.

The title track, Azure, takes its name from a pun on the Persian «az u» or «from them”, and is a meditation on the closing rhyme of ghazal 413 from the Divan of Hafez of Shiraz, az u (from/of them), râh az u, âh az u, “the moon from them, the path from them, the sighs from them”. Imbued with sorrow and release, across the piece Kenney’s vocals and Kang’s viola weave and dance against a shruti drone, calling forth echos of lost moments in far off worlds.

This is followed by three pieces that incorporate traces of disparate cultural traditions into their forms. Ocean is an experiment with different intensities of pulsation, inspired by Korean sung poetry and Kagok playing, the Indian Classical techniques of Dhrupad and gamak, and ring modulation’s use of two simultaneous frequencies - in this case one being agreed upon and the other improvised - which assemble an enveloping expanse of intoxicating harmonics and vibrato. For Forest Floor, Kenney’s long-tone vocalisation play on the meanings of ‘tan’ or body, and ‘nur’ or light, ‘Chegel’ and ‘Khotan’ from ghazal 327 of the Divan of Hafez, and the Javanese names of pitches and associated body parts. Dancing at the boundaries of sorrow and joy, her voice, paced in perfect harmony to Kang’s viola, seems to propose alternate realities of what ecstatic music might be. The album’s final piece, draws upon Glenna Cole Allee’s book, Hanford Reach, incorporating words spoken within by by interviewees living or working in the tribal territories of Wanapum, Yakama, Cayuse, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and many others, on or near the Hanford Nuclear Site, in the state of Washington. Among the album’s most dynamic and powerful efforts - drones and pulsing tones playing counterpoint to Kenney’s soaring vocals - the duo, inexplicably, imbues impressions of the Pacific Northwest with numerous creative touchstones that blur perceptions of both culture and time.

With each of Azure’s discrete expressions, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang ask us to hold/stop/wait/listen at the edges of knowability, allowing the world continues around us, as they draw us into realms of audibility where breathing and blinking might meld with each tone and join the sonorous landscape being formed before our ears. A startlingly gesture of contemporary experimentalism and minimalism, Azure pushes us to find a deeper rhythm; to move, grow, and form our listening bodies towards each composition.

TRACK LISTING

Ocean (08:12)
Eclipse (07:18)
Azure (10:59)
Forest Floor (09:56)
No Sound (13:31)

Unique recording of this unique constellation of musicians. Featuring pianist Chris Abrahams of cult jazz band THE NECKS, guitar and experimental maverick Oren Ambarchi, and percussion experimentalist Robbie Avenaim.

Polymath Oren Ambarchi has a celebrated release career with a devoted new music following, his last solo album “Schebang” on Drag City ended on many 2022 top ten lists including The Wire, along with being listed in Pitchfork 50 Best Albums of the year.

Following nearly 20 years of working together as a trio, and numerous cross-collaborations in different configuration between them, Ideologic Organ presents Placelessness, the debut full-length by Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim, comprising two long-form works at juncture of ambient music, minimalism, rigorous experimentalism and improvisation, and machine music.

Having carved distinct pathways across a diverse number of musical idioms for decades, Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim are each, respectively, among the most noteworthy and groundbreaking figures to have emerged from Australia’s thriving experimental music scene. Ambarchi and Avenaim first encountered Abrahams when seeing the Necks - the project that has served as the primary vehicle for his singular approach to the piano since its founding in 1987 together during the late 1980s, not long after having met in Sydney’s underground music community. The pair’s collaborations date back more than 35 years, criss-crossing Ambarchi’s pioneering solo and ensemble work for guitar and Avenaim’s visionary efforts for SARPS (Semi Automated Robotic Percussion System), robotic and kinetic extensions to his drum kit.

In 2004, fate brought the three together in a trio performance at the What Is Music? Festival, the annual touring showcase of experimental music founded and run by Ambarchi and Avenaim between 1994-2012. For the nearly two decades since, Abrahams, Ambarchi, and Avenaim have intermittently reformed in exclusively live contexts, in Australia and abroad, cultivating and refining the fertile ground first tilled in that early meeting. Placelessness is the first album to present this remarkable trio’s efforts in recorded form.

Placelessness is the joining of three highly individualised streams, working in perfect harmony; the point at which friendship, mutual respect, and decades of creative exploration produce a singular spectrum of sound. Featuring Abrahams on piano, Ambarchi on guitar, and Avenaim on drums, the album’s two sides draw on each artist’s enduring dedication to long-form composition. Its two pieces, Placelessness I and Placelessness II, initially began as a single, 40 minute work, before being divided and reworked into distinct, complimentary gestures for the corresponding sides of the LP.

Beginning with restrained clusters of reverberant piano tones, Placelessness I progresses at an almost glacial pace, with Abrahams’ interventions increasing met by sparse responses, darting within vast ambiences, on guitar and percussion by Ambarchi and Avenaim. Remarkably conversational within its convergences of tonal, rhythmic, and textural abstraction, over the work’s duration a progressive sense of tension unfurls and contracts, refusing release, as each of the ensemble’s members contribute to an increasingly tangled sense of density at its resolve.

While an entirely autonomous work, Placelessness II rapidly realises a distillation of the energy hinted at across the length of its predecessor. Following a luring passage of harmonious calm, Abrahams’ launches into shimmering lines of repeating arpeggios, complimented at each escalation of tempo by Avenaim’s machine gun fire percussion work and Ambarchi’s masterful delivery of tonality and texture, as the trio collectively generate dense sheets of pointillistic ambience within which individual identity is almost lost, before slowly unspooling into unexpected abstractions and dissonances that deftly intervene with the work’s inner logic and calm.

What could easily be termed a maximalist take on Minimalism, Placelessness is a masterstroke of contemporary, real time composition, that blurs the boundaries between ambient music, experimentalism, free improvisation, and machine music. Drawing on Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim’s decades of respective solo and collaborative practice, and the culmination of nearly twenty years of working together as a trio, it’s two durational pieces - Placelessness I and Placelessness II - take form with a startling sense of effortlessness and grace, neither shying away from explicit beauty or rigorously tension within their forms.

TRACK LISTING

01 Placelessness I 18:28
02 Placelessness II 20:42

Does Spring Hide Its Joy is an immersive piece by composer Kali Malone featuring Stephen O’Malley on electric guitar, Lucy Railton on cello, and Malone herself on tuned sine wave oscillators. The music is a study in harmonics and non-linear composition with a heightened focus on just intonation and beating interference patterns. Malone’s experience with pipe organ tuning, harmonic theory, and long durational composition provide prominent points of departure for this work. Her nuanced minimalism unfolds an astonishing depth of focus and opens up contemplative spaces in the listener’s attention.

Does Spring Hide Its Joy follows Malone’s critically acclaimed records The Sacrificial Code [Ideal Recordings, 2019] & Living Torch [Portraits GRM, 2022]. Her collaborative approach expands from her previous work to closely include the musicians Stephen O’Malley & Lucy Railton in the creation and development of the piece. While the music is distinctly Malone’s sonic palette, she composed specifically for the unique styles and techniques of O’Malley & Railton, presenting a framework for subjective interpretation and non-hierarchical movement throughout the music.

Does Spring Hide Its Joy is a durational experience of variable length that follows slowly evolving harmony and timbre between cello, sine waves, and electric guitar. As a listener, the transition between these junctures can be difficult to pinpoint. There’s obscurity and unity in the instrumentation and identities of the players; the electric guitar’s saturation timbre blends with the cello’s rich periodicity, while shifting overtone feedback develops interference patterns against the precise sine waves. The gradual yet ever-occurring changes in harmony challenge the listener’s perception of stasis and movement. The moment you grasp the music, a slight shift in perspective guides your attention forward into a new and unfolding harmonic experience.

Does Spring Hide Its Joy was created between March and May of 2020. During this unsettling period of the pandemic, Malone found herself in Berlin with a great deal of time and conceptual space to consider new compositional methods. With a few interns left on-site, Malone was invited to the Berlin Funkhaus & MONOM to develop and record new music within the empty concert halls. She took this opportunity to form a small ensemble with her close friends and collaborators Lucy Railton & Stephen O’Malley to explore these new structural ideas within those various acoustic spaces. Hence, the foundation was laid for Does Spring Hide Its Joy.

In Kali’s own words: “Like most of the world, my perception of time went through a significant transformation during the pandemic confinements of spring 2020. Unmarked by the familiar milestones of life, the days and months dripped by, instinctively blending with no end in sight. Time stood still until subtle shifts in the environment suggested there had been a passing. Memories blurred non-sequentially, the fabric of reality deteriorated, unforeseen kinships formed and disappeared, and all the while, the seasons changed and moved on without the ones we lost. Playing this music for hours on end was a profound way to digest the countless life transitions and hold time together.”

Ideologic Organ is pleased to present Kali Malone’s Does Spring Hide Its Joy as a triple LP set of around two-hours duration. Mastered by Stephen Mathieu and cut at Schnittstelle Mastering, the record is pressed in perfect sound quality by Optimal in Germany. The album is packaged in a heavyweight laminated jacket with full-color printed inner sleeves, and also available as a three-hour triple CD and in all digital formats.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning set of long-form drone and drifting oscillations on Editions Mego offshoot Ideologic Organ. It's a perfect home for Malone's hypnotic instrumental dialogue, and the perfect landscape for O'Malley & Railton's guest appearances. A grand and uncompromising work of sound design beauty.

TRACK LISTING

3xCDs
Disc 1 - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V1 (01:00:25)
Disc 2 - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V2 (01:00:54)
Disc 3 - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V3 (01:00:15)

3xLPs
1A - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V1.1 (21:05)
1B - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V1.2 (18:50)
2A - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V1.3 (20:30)
2B - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V2.1 (20:12)
3A - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V2.2 (18:08)
3B - Does Spring Hide Its Joy V2.3 (22:43)