Burning Song [CD]

Kali Malone - Burning Song [CD]

Burning Song, composer and organist Kali Malone's first new album since 2024's All Life Long, represents a transformation in her compositional strategy towards a process that is intuitive and direct. The album was recorded at the historic Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany, where J.S. Bach was cantor for the last 27 years of his life; his body rests beneath the sanctuary. Malone is the first musician to perform contemporary works on the church's Bach Organ, an instrument completed in 2000 but with bespoke tuning and temperament systems based on historical norms of the baroque period. She is joined by Lucy Railton on cello and Stephen O'Malley on bowed acoustic guitar, the same trio that honed a profound connection based on deep listening through the development of Malone's work Does Spring Hide Its Joy. Chord follows chord, each in slow succession, emerging like stones of various shades and shapes on a winding path.

The first half of Burning Song was commissioned for the 2023 Venice Music Biennale and presented at the remarkably ornate San Pietro di Castello. The album's final three pieces were composed swiftly in the month preceding the recording session in 2025, their stately progressions emerging within her mind's ear with a sense of ease and inevitability. The closing piece, "My Eve My Dawn," foregrounds the cohesion between endings and beginnings, moving through passages of sadness and joy, the linking tones offering a sense of continuity, and thus of acceptance.

Tracks
1 Grieving Figure (6:35)
2 Map The Path (4:26)
3 Bells On A Branch (5:27)
4 Crawling Ashore (6:43)
5 Sounding A Void (4:48)
6 Heavy With Fruit (5:06)
7 My Eve My Dawn (6:55)