All Life Long unites a series of 12 works for pipe organ, choir and brass quintet composed by Kali Malone, an American transplanted to Stockholm since 2012. The opening bars of this retro-nuovo album, ideal for any contemplative setting, recall liturgical music composed during the founding periods of polyphony: the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Basso continuo effects are punctuated by subtle variations, the chords are simple and subscribe to a microtonal perspective, the notes lengthen in time and settle in space. The pipe organs, which the artist retunes as required, are juxtaposed with gentle, celestial female vocals. Brass instruments are played in the same spirit of contemplation.
Incidentally, the organ works are performed by Kali Malone, accompanied by Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)), a well-known church music enthusiast. It’s also worth noting that the album’s title work appears twice, first as a canon, then with a denser arrangement for voice. This being the case, the composer is not content with a quilt sewn from old references brought up to date. She painstakingly exploits the mechanisms of these old instruments, extracting almost unheard-of sonorities from them;
It has to be said that she takes a different approach to this apparently sacred music, modernizing its harmonies (and sometimes adding dissonances). In short, she does much more than desacralize this old church music, evoking in it a blurrier, more agnostic infinity. ” This is not praise music or spiritual revelation, but an artistic act that translates the indescribable,” we stress on her Bandcamp page. Nothing to add… except to reiterate the astonishing affinities of contemporary music with ancient music.It has to be said that she takes a different approach to this apparently sacred music, modernizing its harmonies (and sometimes adding dissonances). In short, she does much more than desacralize this old church music, evoking in it a blurrier, more agnostic infinity. ” This is not praise music or spiritual revelation, but an artistic act that translates the indescribable,” we stress on her Bandcamp page. Nothing to add… except to reiterate the astonishing affinities of contemporary music with ancient music.
