Ariel Kalma

Ariel Kalma stands out as a highly productive composer and multi-instrumentalist who has journeyed across continents, crafting music that spans electronic experiments, minimalism, electro-acoustic works, ambient electronics, and new age pieces carrying worldwide influences. His first LP, Le Temps des Moissons from 1975 and shaped by Terry Riley’s minimalism, marked the beginning of dozens of spiritually oriented releases; later career phases brought multiple volumes of previously unreleased archival material to light. Drone-oriented efforts such as Musique Pour Le Reve et L'Amour in 1981 gave way to more explicit new age explorations, among them Flute for the Soul issued in 1996. Early experimental outings like Osmose from 1978 gained renewed attention through reissues starting in the 2000s, while recent partnerships with younger musicians encompass We Know Each Other Somehow, recorded in 2015 with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, and The Closest Thing to Silence, released in 2024 alongside Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer.

Born and raised in Paris, Kalma took up the recorder at age nine and the saxophone at fifteen, performing in school ensembles and rock & roll groups before university broadened his listening toward avant-garde and free jazz. While pursuing computer science studies and gigging in rock venues, Belgian pop star Salvatore Adamo offered encouragement. After a period in a free jazz duo with a drummer, Kalma joined Adamo’s touring band on sax and flute, mastering the latter instrument within a single week. Travels brought encounters with virtuoso Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell, leading to joint performances in Germany and later Paris. Returning to Paris in 1971, he began working with Revox reel-to-reel tape recorders, delays, and analog loops that incorporated organs, poetry, flutes, saxophones, and noise, often capturing church atmospheres and ambient sounds.

Early 1974 saw Kalma join French pop singer Jacques Higelin’s band for a nine-month global tour. During this period an airplane hangar in India amid monsoon season prompted him to activate his portable tape recorder, resulting in what he described as a “heart-opening” experience; circular breathing technique was also acquired along the way. Upon returning to Paris later that year via an extended route, his outlook on both life and music had shifted permanently.

Composers Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and Charlemagne Palestine, together with the Delhi-based Dagar Brothers of the Dhrupad and their concepts of minimal drones, just intonation, and precisely tuned instrumentation, exerted strong influence, which Kalma merged with his own background and tape experiments. A stint at Pierre Henry’s Institut National Audiovisuel, Groupe de Recherches Musicales (INA GRM) followed. In that same period he recorded and self-released his debut album Le Temps des Moissons (The Time of the Harvest) in 1975, distributing copies from his moped and through consignment arrangements with record shops.

Back in Paris he met Riley and created his second album, Osmose, alongside sculptor and field recorder Richard Tinti, who contributed bird and insect songs captured in a tropical rainforest. Released in 1978 on France’s SFP label, Osmose occupies territory between Eno’s ambient music and the emerging new age genre. Interfrequence appeared in 1980 via Editions Montparnasse, tracing a gently undulating path between experimental drone music and new age; subsequent releases included Musique Pour Le Reve et L'Amour in 1981, the cassette-only Bindu in 1984, and Serenity in 1989.

These titles represent only the officially issued portion of Kalma’s work. Countless additional studio recordings remained unreleased for decades, each reflecting evolving facets of his musical development, worldview, and travels. Even as his output leaned toward new age territory, electronic experiments persisted, evidenced by Galactica Electronica from his 1980s space music phase.

Throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first century Kalma handled his own distribution through his website, independent labels, and distributors, with highlights such as Endless Breath and Flute for the Soul. The Beta-Lactam Ring label reissued selected early albums during the 2000s. April 2014 brought Open Like a Flute, merging two 1980s cassette recordings made in Montreal, Paris, and Hamburg. November of that year saw RVNG Intl. issue An Evolutionary Music: Original Recordings: 1972-1979, a collection of early tape pieces. As part of the label’s FRKWYS series, Kalma collaborated with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe on We Know Each Other Somehow in 2015. Black Sweat Records released the four-LP box set French Archives 1977-1980 in 2017. Another set of 1970s pieces, Nuits Blanches Au Studio 116, surfaced in 2019.

Kalma maintains a steady pace of self-issued live, studio, and archival material. Most recent releases on external labels involve collaborations, among them Intemporel with Sarah Davachi in 2019, Head Voices with Gilbert Cohen issued by Versatile Records in 2020, and a split-LP with Jonathan Fitoussi released by Abstrakce Records within their Encyclopedia of Civilizations series. Notes Above Land, drawn from rehearsals and performances tied to We Know Each Other Somehow, appeared in 2021. Three Blokes in Ameno, recorded with Davide Zolli and Riccardo Sinigaglia, came out in 2022. French Archives, Vols. 1 & Vol. 2 followed in 2021 and 2023, respectively. The Closest Thing to Silence, a collaboration with electronic musician Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer, was issued by International Anthem in 2024.