Does Spring Hide Its Joy (feat. Stephen O'Malley & Lucy Railton)

Kali Malone’s 2019 album, The Sacrificial Code, was one of those unusual LPs that made hardcore minimalism sound as simple and intuitive as folk music. Recorded with cellist Lucy Railton and sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley, Does Spring Hide Its Joy is, effectively, a lattice of overlapping drones whose longest performance (there are three included here) runs for three hours. The fundamental question with music like this, then, is when and how do you listen to it? All at once or in pieces? As background or as the object of attention? From a performance standpoint, the album is an incredible feat of patience and sensitivity. But you figure part of what has made the Denver-born, Stockholm-based Malone the People’s Minimalist is her emotionality, which grounds the music’s conceptual aspirations in feelings—melancholy, reflection, sublimated longing—anyone can understand.