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.
Recorded and performed August 2017 by Sarah Davachi
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)
There's a handheld camera aspect to this collaborative recording — hushed, creaking, intimate — that I found so very striking. I wasn't aware that these two experimental composers were a couple, but even so, you hear the tenderness between Sarah and Sean, in four-handed piano, guitar duos and chimed bells. https://www.vikingschoice.org/archive/vikings-choice-guide-to-bandcamp-friday-nov-2021/ Lars Gotrich
Written and recorded on a reed organ, “HULDA” is a haunting work of sustained drone that is simultaneously soothing & unsettling. Bandcamp New & Notable May 15, 2023
The Danish avant-garde rock trio join forces with a classical music ensemble for this harrowing LP, a dronescape inspired by grief. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 26, 2022