Kali Malone

★★★★ The Sacrificial Code IDEAL. CD/DL/LP Epic drones from US musician rethinking minimalism in Stockholm. Drawing on histories of devotional composers, sacred spaces, and the coded tuning systems of early music, a handful of female musicians – Ellen Arkbro, Sarah Davachi, Caterina Barbieri and Kali Malone – are currently attempting to reshape the future of drone music. From working part-time tuning church organs in rural Sweden, fascinated by how different tuning systems reflected the character of surrounding communities, Malone creates limiting composition systems of her own. On this epic follow-up to last year’s Organ Dirges EP, with her organ miked to eliminate church reverb and expressive flourishes, Malone draws the listener into the unique interior timbre of the pipe organ, like the idling breath of a large machine at rest; a music of worship, where the object of spiritual veneration is the inner space of the instrument itself. Andrew Male