Taken from her forthcoming album, Cantus, Descant.
Sarah Davachi explores medieval harmonies and latinate choral structures on her new album, Cantus, Descant, her first to be released on her own label, Late Music.
The first single, ‘Stations II’, is one section of a five-part sequence featured on the album, which arrives accompanied by an evocative visual. “This album focuses on the organ in its various forms as the central instrument – pipe organ, reed organ, and electric organ”, she explains. In her own words, the album features “some of the most interiorized and psychedelic textures I’ve ever experienced from an instrument.”
“The minutiae of space and that sense of dialogue between near and far is I suppose another iteration of the cantus-descant metaphor that ended up being a more literal reference in the record.” The album’s title refers to a dichotomy between the individual, unadorned voice, the ‘Cantus’, and the polyphonic harmonies, the ‘Descant’, that lies at the heart of her new album.
The album also features two songs that include Davachi’s own voice for the first time. “There’s a lot of personal catharsis imbedded in this record”, says Davachi, “and the two songs that I ended up creating actually felt like a really nice foil to the instrumental structures that I’m better known for.”
Cantus, Descant arrives on September 18 and is available to pre-order now.
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