Another reason to rejoice in the pipe organ, besides Bach and Messiaen (see also French organ improvisation!), is Kali Malone (website; wiki; YouTube topic; interview).

Raised in Denver, since 2012 she’s been based in Stockholm, fertile soil for her experiments. The extreme austerity of her ouevre, using electronic technology to the full, somehow gains rave reviews far beyond the organ cabal; I find it a weird and wonderful cause for celebration that there are tribes for this kind of thing. As with much minimalism, my need to listen to all her work may be partly because I keep wondering if something is ever going to happen, or if I will notice it happening while still semi-conscious—or perhaps rather it’s that I want to rise to the challenge of internalising her time-frame. This music makes Noh drama (links here) seem positively action-packed.

Organ dirges 2016–2017:

Cast of mind (2018), with wind and brass (as playlist):

On organ, The sacrificial code (2019) (as playlist):

Living torch album (2022), which one might hardly notice is “an organ-free zone”:

On Does spring hide its joy * (2020/2023), Malone plays sine-wave oscillators, with Stephen O’Malley on guitar and Lucy Railton on cello—another album that has achieved remarkable popularity in this age of fragmented attention:

The three variations span over 300 minutes—still more compelling, With All Due Respect, than the interminable ramblings of George Gurdjieff on harmonium.

Her latest album is All life long (2024), again incorporating hieratic vocals and brass (playlist):

In his review, Alex Petridis splendidly describes Malone’s interviews as

very much the place to go if you’re interested in the cultural contexts of 15th-century meantone organ tuning…

Her partner Stephen O’Malley plays guitar in SUNN O))) (listen e.g. here), a band that blends doom metal, drone, black metal, dark ambient, and noise rock (more taxonomy!), their style “characterised by slow tempos, distorted guitars, lack of rhythm and melody, and alternative tunings” (YAY).

In the best possible way, this music “really messiaens with your head”—you might need to take an occasional break… I think we can safely discount rumours (again in my head) of a collaboration with Katherine Jenkins for a Christmas album of catchy hits from the shows.

For earlier, and more eventful, avant-garde soundscapes, see e.g. Meredith Monk. See also The right kind of spirituality?.

---

* I wonder if this a kind of rhetorical non-question, perhaps to be completed by HELLO.