Across her previous five albums, the Denver-born, Berlin-based composer Kali Malone had cumulatively released roughly twelve longform compositions, some sprawling across multiple album sides. Meanwhile her sixth album, All Life Long, features twelve compositions and a succinct 78-minute runtime that – for drone/ modern composition fans – might as well be a pivot to pop music. In a recent profile, Malone referred to her prior microtonal work as “my cave man music,” but the music here remains just as sophisticated. 

Highlighting work for brass quintet, chamber choir, and an array of antique pipe organs scattered across European cathedrals, All Life Long is Malone’s most assured and personal album to date. The lyrics to “Slow of Faith” come from a poem she fell in love with as a teenager, her choral work dovetailing with the brass ensembles of “No Sun to Burn.” And her love of durational overtones remains intact, as the organ pieces hover and linger like clouds. On stately closer “The Unification of Inner & Outer Life,” the meantone organ duet between Malone and Sunn O))) member Stephen O’Malley attains sublimity. You’ll just wish it went on much, much, much longer.