Calum Builder (b. 1991) is an Australian composer and saxophonist based in Copenhagen whose wide-ranging practice encompasses improvisation, installation and sound art. His work is characterised by unusual combinations of instruments and voices, and recently, a particular fascination with the sonic possibilities of pipe organs. These explorations, both within and outside the organ’s usual church/ritual context, led Builder to construct an organ of his own design, using pipes salvaged from various Danish churches, organ builders and collectors. 

Although his latest recording features a more commonly recognisable instrument – the organ of the Mariendals Kirke in Copenhagen – Renewal Manifestation is nevertheless imbued with a similarly deep interest in organ mechanics, which, like saxophones, says Builder, are intrinsically “tied to air and breath”. Over the course of this four-movement work, these life essentials audibly transform, from lumbering, asthmatic uncertainty to confidently serene animation – the organ as Frankenstein, without being too literal. 

Air travels through bellows; rich organic sounds beat, clunk, flutter and drone, at first in very low registers, but as members of the Crush String Collective join Danish organist Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen...