Sarah Davachi is a luminary in the field of electroacoustic music, with a master's degree from Mills College and an in progress doctorate from UCLA. Her self-released album Horae builds on a noteworthy career that includes 17 releases and worldwide tours with such notable contemporaries as Grouper, William Basinski, and Oren Ambarchi. Named after Greek goddesses, this album evokes the same feelings and visceral reactions experienced when listening to similarly unstructured soundscapes found in nature. Describing the post of the horae at the gates to Olympus, this minimalist document is regal, stately, and emotionally potent.self-released
It opens with "First Triad," a duet for flying saucers, the visual allusion carrying the pitches as they streak across the sky. Tones approach and diverge, bleating their incongruous frequencies, like play between complementary and contrasting colors. With standout track "Carpo," tones curl and embrace in a concordant melange, like a heart swelling union between two life partners. Dense with emotion, it brings a blush to the face.
"Second Triad" is more of a static drone, with warm harmonies and gradual embellishments. It feels like a long, sustained operatic note, deepening into a trilling vibrato. For me, "Third Triad" invokes the same emotions of comfort and security as a Mozart horn concerto—the sound color is similar, with samples swiftly beating and shifting in a womb like environment. The track with the most restless motion to it, "Dysis," launches right into bold sweeping tones, expanding and contracting with a touch of the blues.
In Davachi's other recordings and live performances, she works with a large variety of instruments, creating sonic environments of completely different timbres than that of Horae. Appreciators of her signature voice will find much to enjoy in the back catalogue.
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