Calum Builder’s Reconstructed Organ Turns Psalm Fragments into a Long-Form Meditation

Calum Builder’s relationship to the organ began with salvage. The saxophonist collected abandoned church organ pipes in Northern Denmark and rebuilt them into a portable instrument, treating the organ as another aerophone—an instrument moved by breath rather than reeds. That physical act of recovery shapes Although Changed, I Arise the Same, a record built from psalm fragments and long tones.

Vocalists Johanna Sulkunen and Zola Mennenöh join Builder across two opening quarter-hour pieces. “Where Can I Go” draws from Psalm 139, beginning with sparse taps and a dry, desolate air. Harmonies surface only after several minutes, and the singers’ repetitions gradually become prayer-like. “Surely” opens with a train-horn timbre, then holds a dark drone beneath Psalm 139:11–12. The final movement, “Is As Light,” pairs the highest vocal notes with the lowest organ registers.

The album’s title quotes the Latin Eadem mutata resurgo—the same, changed, I rise again—associated with the logarithmic spiral and, by extension, with the idea of a soul reshaped but continuous. Builder’s salvaged pipes embody that logic: removed from a church, re-voiced for transport, and still carrying the weight of their original function.