Kali Malone releases Burning Song with cello and bowed guitar
Kali Malone’s Burning Song is out on Ideologic Organ, reuniting the organist with Lucy Railton on cello and Stephen O’Malley on bowed acoustic guitar. Recorded in Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, its seven compositions include music commissioned for the Venice Music Biennale and pieces written shortly before the sessions. The recording took place over two nights in August 2025.
Arts··Morning
The trio records together in Leipzig
Composer and organist Kali Malone has released Burning Song through Ideologic Organ, the music label publishing the album. Lucy Railton plays cello and Stephen O’Malley plays bowed acoustic guitar alongside Malone’s organ. The seven-piece album reunites the ensemble that previously worked together on Does Spring Hide Its Joy. Malone composed all the music.[1], [2]
Recording took place over two nights in August 2025 at Thomaskirche, a church in Leipzig, Germany. Francesco Donadello recorded and mixed the sessions, assisted by Samuel Schwenk. More than 20 microphones were placed around the room and close to the instruments. The sessions brought organ, cello and bowed guitar into the same church acoustic.[1]
The Bach Organ and a change in composition
The church’s Bach Organ was completed in 2000. Its tuning and temperament systems draw on historical baroque practice. The album notes identify Malone as the first musician to play contemporary works on this instrument. It was used for the new recording alongside Railton’s cello and O’Malley’s acoustic guitar, which is played with a bow.[1]
Jonathan Williger’s liner notes describe a move from the canon form prominent in Malone’s earlier organ music. In a canon, a musical line returns through successive entries. For Burning Song, Williger describes more linear pieces, connected by bridging tones. His account concerns the way the compositions proceed and how one passage connects with the next.[1]
A commission and later compositions
The first half of the album originated in a commission for the Venice Music Biennale in 2023 and was presented at San Pietro di Castello in Venice, Italy. Early ideas were developed at a piano backstage at Bozar, an arts venue in Brussels, Belgium, after a performance. The final three pieces were written in the month before recording.[1]
Matt Colton completed mastering and cutting at Metropolis Studios in London in March 2026. The album’s design is credited to JS Aurelius and its photography to Kingsley Ifill. Those production stages followed the Leipzig sessions of the previous year. Burning Song was released on October 30, bringing the commission and the later pieces into one album.[1]
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