Kali Malone: The Composer Who Creates Sublime Music

Kali Malone is an American composer and organist who lives in Stockholm, Sweden. She makes minimalist and drone music that uses special tuning systems for analog and digital synthesis, and sometimes mixes them with acoustic instruments. Her music is very immersive and relaxing, and also very focused and detailed.

In this article, we will learn more about the background, influences, and achievements of Kali Malone, one of the most creative and original composers of our time.

Early life and education

Kali Malone was born in 1994 in Colorado, USA. She grew up in Denver, where she saw the beautiful mountains that would later inspire her music. She moved to Western Massachusetts to study music, but moved to Stockholm in 2012 after meeting the Swedish avant-garde composer Ellen Arkbro. She studied electroacoustic composition at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm, where she became interested in tuning systems and harmonic theory.

Career and collaborations

In 2016, she started the record label and concert series XKatedral with Maria W Horn in Stockholm. The label features experimental music from Scandinavia and other places, with a focus on electronic and acoustic soundscapes.

In 2019, she released The Sacrificial Code, which has almost two hours of pipe organ compositions, through iDEAL Recordings. The album was on the best-of lists by Pitchfork and The Wire, and was named “2019 Album of the Year” by Boomkat. The album shows Malone’s skill with the pipe organ, an instrument that she uses to make rich harmonic sounds and small changes in tone and volume.

In 2022, she released Living Torch, a 33-minute piece in two movements. It was made for the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) for its speaker orchestra, the Acousmonium. Leaving behind Malone’s usual pipe organ, it has a mix of acoustic and electronic instruments like the trombone and bass clarinet. It was made by Malone in 11-odd limit just intonation, a tuning system that makes complex and dissonant sounds. The trombone and bass clarinet were recorded in careful individual parts to match each computer-made sound wave. It was put together by Malone with thick drones as well as the boîte à bourdon and sounds made by the ARP 2500 synthesizer owned by Éliane Radigue. Malone made and produced the album at the GRM in Paris between 2020 and 2021. It is the first collaboration between the GRM and its new label partner Shelter Press, continuing the Portraits GRM record series started by Peter Rehberg of Editions MEGO. The album was first played at the GRM in October 2021, three months after Rehberg’s death, and was released by Portraits GRM on July 7, 2022.

In 2023, she released Does Spring Hide Its Joy, a collaboration with Sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley and British cellist Lucy Railton. It was made and recorded between March and May 2020 in the empty concert halls of Berlin Funkhaus and MONOM during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Malone plays tuned sine wave oscillators on the album, joined by O’Malley’s electric guitar and Railton’s cello. The album has an hour-long composition in three versions, each a small variation on the main piece. It was released through O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ label on January 20, 2023.

Malone has also performed a lot, playing her music at Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie de Paris, Radio France, Rockefeller Chappel, Grace Cathedral, The Southbank Center, Bozar, Schauspielhaus, Unsound Festival, Musica Festival, Berlin Atonal, Moogfest, and Kanal Pompidou among many other museums, contemporary art spaces, concert halls, churches, DIY venues and festivals in Europe, North America, and Australia. Her work has been asked for and invited by places like the Ina GRM, Lafayette Anticipations, The Richard Thomas Foundation, 4DSOUND, Orgelpark, La Becque, Le lieu unique, MACBA, and Elektronmusikstudion. She now works together with different artists, such as Stephen O’Malley, Lucy Railton, Macadam Ensemble, Frederikke Hoffmeier, Leila Bordreuil, and Drew McDowall.

Influences and style

Malone’s music is influenced by many kinds of music and artists, from classical composers like Bach, Debussy, and Messiaen, to minimalist pioneers like La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich, to drone legends like Éliane Radigue, Catherine Christer Hennix, and Pauline Oliveros, to contemporary experimentalists like Ellen Arkbro, Caterina Barbieri, and Sarah Davachi.

Malone’s music is marked by her use of special tuning systems, such as just intonation, meantone temperament, and microtonality. She looks into the harmonic and psychoacoustic effects of these systems, making complex and dissonant sounds that make beating patterns and difference tones. She also uses repetition and variation to make small changes in tone and volume, making a sense of tension and release.

Malone’s music is also known for its immersive and relaxing qualities. She makes long compositions that ask the listener to listen deeply and meditate. She often uses low sounds and drones to make a physical and emotional impact on the listener. She also uses spatialization techniques to make a three-dimensional sound field that surrounds the listener.

Conclusion

Kali Malone is one of the most creative and original composers of our time. She makes sublime music that uses special tuning systems for analog and digital synthesis, and sometimes mixes them with acoustic instruments. Her music is very immersive and relaxing, and also very focused and detailed. She is a productive and flexible artist who works with different musicians and artists across genres and fields. She is also a co-founder of the record label and concert series XKatedral, which features experimental music from Scandinavia and other places. She is an artist who pushes the limits of sound and music, making new sound worlds that challenge and inspire the listener.