'This EP cassette was put together as a footnote to 'Cantus, Descant', a more raw and improvisational representation of the composition process in its early stages. These were actually the very first recordings I gathered when I began working on this record in August of 2017. A week or two before I moved from Canada to LA, I did several recording sessions at Pacific Spirit United Church in Vancouver and Chapelle Saint-Louis in Montréal on two beautiful Casavant organs from 1964 and 1916, respectively.
'Ruminant', from 'Cantus, Descant', comes from the Vancouver sessions and is "thematically" related to the 'Laurus I-III' material here. Nothing from the Montréal sessions actually ended up on the LPs, but I vividly remember recording the 'Accord of Voice I-II' series. I had just returned from six weeks in Europe and went in to do the first set of recordings the very next day at 7 am, before the church opened to the public, and my mind was kind of a mess. 'Accord of Voice I' was the first thing I worked on, it is the seedling of 'Cantus, Descant' even though it didn't make it to the album, and I still perform it for myself sometimes when I'm starting with any particular organ as a way of getting my head in the right place.'
-Sarah Davachi
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Featuring the Casavant pipe organs of Pacific Spirit United Church in Vancouver, BC, Canada (ca. 1964) and Chapelle Saint-Louis in Montréal, QC, Canada (ca. 1916)
Recorded and performed August 2017 by Sarah Davachi
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Late Music, 2020
Sarah Davachi (b. 1987, Calgary, Canada) holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Calgary, and a master's degree in electronic music and recording media from Mills College in Oakland, California. As a composer of electronic and electroacoustic music, Davachi's compositional projects are primarily concerned with disclosing the antiquated instruments and forgotten sonics of a bygone era in analog synthesis, with concurrent treatment of acoustic sources – particularly organ, piano, strings, and woodwinds – often involving de-familiarization through processing. Her work considers the experience of enveloped sonic dwelling, utilizing extended durations, psychoacoustic manipulations, and simple harmonic structures that emphasize variations in overtone complexity and natural phasing patterns.
