Kali Malone - The Sacrificial Code 2xLP

Label: Ideal

Kali Malone presents a new album featuring nearly two hours of concentrated pipe organ pieces governed by a strict acoustic and compositional code. It's a major new work with ultimately profound emotional resonance. The Sacrificial Code takes a more surgical approach to the methods first explored on Organ Dirges 2016-2017. Over the course of three parts performed on three different organs, Malone's minimalist procedure captures a jarring precision of closeness, both on the level of the materiality of the sounds and on the level of composition. The recordings of The Sacrificial Code involve careful close-miking of the pipe organ in such a way as to eliminate environmental identifiers as far as possible – essentially removing the large hall reverb so inextricably linked to the instrument. The pieces are then further compositionally stripped of gestural adornments and spontaneous expressive impulse – an approach reminiscent of Steve Reich's words, "by voluntarily giving up the freedom to do whatever momentarily comes to mind, we are, as a result, free of all that momentarily comes to mind." With its slow, purified, and seemingly austere qualities, The Sacrificial Code guides you through an almost trance-inducing process where you become vulnerable receptors for every slight movement, where every miniature shift in sound becomes magnified through stillness. As such, it's a uniquely satisfying exercise in transcendence through self-restraint – a stunning realization of ideas borne out of academic and conceptual rigor which gradually reveals startling personal dimensions. It has a perception-altering quality that encourages self-exploration free of signposts and without a preordained endpoint – the antithesis to the language of colorless musical platitudes we've become so accustomed to. Features additional organ pieces performed by Ellen Arkbro.