Sarah Davachi has been consistently putting out some of the most engrossing ambient music for the last few years, and 2020 is set to see her go a step further. She will be releasing a double album called Cantus, Descant on September 18, through her own newly-formed label Late Music. The record is 80 minutes across 17 tracks, and Davachi introduces it by saying:
“The title of the record – ‘Cantus, Descant’ – has both literal and metaphorical meaning and, in a way, this is something like a concept album that addresses the relationship between the two. In medieval music, the Latin ‘cantus’ was used as a general term for unadorned singing or chant and by the end of the Middle Ages it came to represent the highest voice of a polyphonic choral texture, often improvised.
“‘Descant’, at that time, was used in part to denote the structures of polyphony and counterpoint, the harmonious play of two or more voices against one another. Harmony is a musical device that is particularly meaningful to the material on this album, especially in the ‘Stations I-V’ series and its use of a sixteenth-century meantone temperament, but the inherent dialogue that persists between the individual (the cantus) and the larger time and space that it occupies (the descant) came to inhabit a more significant presence in the ideas and feelings that inform the album as well. In this way, the album takes solace in a suspension of the private within the collective, and the moment within the mythic.“
There’s hardly going to be anything more informative or insightful that I can add to the above. But she has also put out “Stations II”, which you can listen to below, so why don’t you just go ahead and do that? It’s also available on all DSPs via this link.
Sarah Davachi’s new album Cantus, Descant is out on September 18 via Late Music. You can follow the artist on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Bandcamp.
