Davachi, Sarah

Davachi, Sarah

Dominions

Jaz

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Dominions is the second full-length release from Canadian electroacoustic composer SARAH DAVACHI, following 2015’s Barons Court. A slightly more demure approach is at work here, shifting from the brooding textures of her previous work to softer tones and more delicate movements in structure, as in side openers "Feeler" and "Ordinal." Recorded primarily at her home base in Vancouver, Davachi returns with her typical assembly of electronic equipment, mostly consisting of vintage synthesizers as well as the Orchestron, a rare optical sampler known for its low fidelity charms. The five compositions on this release breathe new life into these obsolete machines, pausing only for the stringed cacophony of the album’s closer. Melodics emerge almost as an after thought, suggesting something farther and more distant, echoed in the disjointed imagery of local artist, DANIEL PRESNELL.  Limited edition new pressing.

Davachi, Sarah

Pale Bloom

W.25TH

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  Received a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork.  Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination. Recorded at Berkeley, California’s famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first—a three-part suite where Davachi’s piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress—recalls Eduard Artemiev’s majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. “Perfumes I-III” employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike. While the first half of Pale Bloom showcases Davachi’s latent Romanticism, the sidelong “If It Pleased Me To Appear To You Wrapped In This Drapery” reveals the Mills College graduate’s affinity for the work of avant-garde composers La Monte Young and Eliane Radigue. Softly vibrating strings rise and fall like complementary exhalations of breath. As the fluctuating pitches create overtones that pitter and pulse, the piece slowly and subtly evolves—suggesting a well-tempered stillness, yet without stasis.

Davachi, Sarah

Gave In Rest

Ba Da Bing!

***BACK IN STOCK ON LP!!!  Received a 7.7 rating from Pitchfork.  Sarah Davachi has quickly risen in prominence since her first release five years ago, and Gave In Rest represents her highest artistic achievement. By infusing her compositional style within a predilection for medieval and Renaissance music, Davachi unearths a new realm of musical reverence, creating works both contemplative and beatific, eerie yet essentially human. Gave In Rest is a modern reading of early music, reforming sacred and secular sentiments to fit her purview and provide an exciting new way to hear the sounds that exist around us.  Between January and September of 2017, Sarah Davachi lived in flux; storing her belongings in Vancouver, she spent the summer in Europe, occasionally performing in churches and lapidariums and seeking respite from her transitional state while surrounded by such storied history. This latest album echoes that emotional state of solitude and ephemerality, reaching towards familiar musical landscapes but from oblique perspectives. “I named each track after a particular time of day as a way of expressing my experiencing different moments of quietude, how morning and night are both independent and interconnected entities in this regard,” she says. Her titles evoke canonical phrases referring to morning or evening prayers, as well as Latin and German phrasings for metaphors about the time of day. “From my perspective, there is a lot of loneliness on this record, and I think it is as much about beginnings as endings,” she continues. “In a way,...

Davachi, Sarah

All My Circles Run

Students Of Decay

All My Circles Run is the third full-length release by Montreal-based electro-acoustic composer Sarah Davachi and her second outing for Students of Decay. In a move which may surprise followers of her previous output, the five compositions on this record eschew synthesizer entirely, each focusing on a different instrument, including strings, voice, organ and piano. What remains consistent, however, is her striking attention to detail and a commitment to tonal possibilities that characterize all of her work. The sinewy “For Strings” opens the album, with keening overtones stretching out in all directions to form a massive, slow-moving, radiant sound. “For Voice” charts an even more celestial course, as wordless vocals ebb and flow to awe-inspiring effect. The stunning, melancholic “For Piano” closes the record and is a high watermark in Davachi’s oeuvre, with plaintive piano figures nestled atop a shimmering string drone to create a rich, reverent atmosphere. All My Circles Run is a step forward from an exciting artist whose compositional and aesthetic tendencies steer her steadfastly toward both the subjunctive and the sublime.

Davachi, Sarah

Barons Court

Students Of Decay

Barons Court is the debut full-length album by Canadian electroacoustic composer Sarah Davachi, following short run releases on Important Records’ Cassauna imprint and Full Spectrum. Trained at Mills College, Davachi’s academic approach to synthesis and live instrumentation unites with a preternatural attunement to timbre, pacing and atmosphere.  While the record employs a number of vintage and legendary synthesizers, including Buchla’s 200 and Music Easel, an EMS Synthi, and Sequential Circuit’s Prophet 5, Davachi’s approach to her craft here is much more in line with the longform textural minimalism of Éliane Radigue than it is with the hyper-dense modular pyrotechnics of the majority of her synthesist contemporaries. Three of the album’s five compositions feature acoustic instrumentation (cello, flue, harmonium, oboe and viola, played by Davachi and others) which is situated alongside a battery of keyboards and synths, and emphasizes the composerly aspect of her work. “heliotrope” slowly billows into being with a low, keeling drone that is gradually married to an assortment of sympathetic, aurally complex sounds to yield a rich fantasia of beat frequencies and overtones. Later, “wood green” opens almost inaudibly, with lovely eddies of subtly modulating synth clouds evolving effortlessly into something much larger, as comforting and familiar as it is expansive.  In an era in which the synthesizer inarguably dominates the topography of experimental music, Davachi’s work stands alone—distinctive, patient and beautiful.