Kali Malone: Burning Song review – drone composer wields Bach’s organ to breathtaking effect

(Ideologic Organ) The US artist takes a newly compact approach to her craft, and trades technical composition methods for pure emotion on another sombre masterpiece

In drone world, Burning Song is Kali Malone’s pop record. These pieces are significantly shorter than the lengthy ones that made the US composer’s name, and she takes a newfound emotional approach to composition, forsaking the contrapuntal canon form.

In some arcane land, this probably constitutes unforgivable selling out. In more rational circles, the result is still 40 minutes of beautiful, plaintive tonality, with Lucy Railton on cello and Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))) (also Malone’s husband) on bowed acoustic guitar. Malone plays the Bach organ at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, where the composer was cantor for his last 27 years.