This event is included in the Friends of Reethaus annual pass.
In 2021, Kali Malone gained access to the Temple of La Tour-de-Peilz, a small chapel a stone’s throw from Lake Geneva that contains two organs. Malone went to work on the one equipped with manual pumps, tuning it in septimal just intonation. When Leila Bordreuil arrived with her cello, they began a series of experiments, inviting the timbres of their respective instruments to mingle and alloy with one another in the resonance of the chapel. The result of this site-bound encounter is Music for Intersecting Planes, soon to be released by Stephen O’Malley’s label Ideologic Organ, and on this occasion spatialised for a unique listening experience at Reethaus.
This collaboration opens a thrilling third space between the work of Bordreuil, known for her ruthless noise-flecked textures, and that of Malone, a composer whose extended tunnels of sound are typically more tonal and restful. The name of the work, represented on the record jacket by a thick square cross, just as easily refers to the intersecting planes of the church architecture as to the encounter between the wave forms emitted by each artist.
The inconstant air pressure in the pipe organ that Malone was manually pumping meant that pitch was never definitively sustained — a perfect interface for Bordreuil, whose work thrives on improvisation and extended techniques that bring the wildly unexpected out of the cello. Performed in single takes, this acoustic recording gathers the idiosyncrasies of the chapel, the errancy of the human hand and the happenstance of space.
This February, the drones return to Reethaus with Music for Intersecting Planes, curated by Soundwalk Collective.
