Sarah Davachi - Two Sisters

A Closer Listen

Listening to Two Sisters is like going to church ~ not a modern church, or even a medieval church, but a church liberated from doctrine and dogma, where emotion and spirit are carried by notes and amplified by the spaces in-between.  One can’t help but feel that this is what was intended by the ancient architects of resonant stone cathedrals, the glaziers of stained glass, the metallurgists of pipe organs.

The album begins in bells and ends in bells, and a lot happens in the middle.  A 52-page score book with tuning and performance notes may also be purchased from the artist.  This is how one learns, for example, that “Hall of Mirrors” was composed for the Charles Baird carillon at the University of Michigan, and that this particular carillon has a loudspeaker and a lower range than most of its relatives.  In earlier times, a town carillon did more than call people to church; it kept the time for the town, singing hymns without words.  Carillon expert Tiffany Ng plays not only melodies, but clock tones; Sarah Davachi provides the sine: lower than the low end, an anchor of sorts, symbolizing the tug of earthly concerns.  Then Davachi’s electric organ begins to hum, producing an undercurrent of anticipation.

“Alas, Departing” is based on the 1450 broken-hearted love song “Alas Departynge is Ground of Woo,” sung here by Jessika Kenney and Dorothy Berry.  While the song is defined as “secular,” there’s no mistaking its spiritual tone. Dicky Bahto’s scratched black and white video is filled with hands, stretching toward heaven and to – and through – each other.  The yearning for connection is thwarted by connection denied, a common theme in the world these past two years, but not unique to this era.  Mid-piece, hands reach down for the first time, and then a face, like the face of God, slowly turning away before vanishing, like many people’s experience of religion.  But then, color … was not something left behind after all?  The arms spread from the heavens again, as if to display an invisible banquet.

Is this not what we have?  Our emptiness or fullness may be determined not by what can be seen, but what can be intuited, counted, embraced.  When Davachi turns to pipe organ for “Vanity of Ages,” she cements the church connection of bells – choir – organ, the title reminiscent of Ecclesiastes’ Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, referring the span of life, and all its endeavors, as vapor.  Transcendence, spoken of in multiple religions, involves the separation of the material and the spiritual.  Davachi’s extended notes invite the thoughts to soar.

“Vanity of Ages” is the beginning of what one might call the drone section of the album, which continues with “Icon Studies I and II,” bracketing “Harmonies in Bronze” and “Harmonies in Green.”  The first “Icon Studies” is written for string quartet, woodwind trio and drone, the second for string quartet alone, the intervening “Harmonies” for solo organ.  Davachi writes that the performance of “Icon Studies I” should be “relatively muted and even,” which it is here, with one notable adaptation: Davachi’s synthesizer operates as the third “woodwind” alongside quartertone bass flute and alto Renaissance recorder.  Does it matter that this piece could not have been played in this way in medieval times?  Are arbitrary rules of composition another form of vanity?

At first, one is tempted to jump to “Icon Studies II” to locate the connection, but Davachi has sequenced her album wisely; the “Harmonies” preserve the album’s flow.  As the album continues, it falls further and further into a slow, meditative trance, having already won the devotion of its listeners.  If the set were a church service, these works would be the silent prayers in the center, the lighting of candles, the quiet hush as elements are distributed, remembering that there is no such thing as silence, but that sound can imitate silent sensation.  “Bronze” begins to climb to a higher register slowly yet purposefully, ascending the steps of Jacob’s ladder.  “Green” descends to the depths of the soil before poking softly through the surface.  This gentle upward trajectory leads to “Icon Studies II,” in which the buds have the opportunity to grow.

The album’s other “single” (if one can call a 12:48 track a single) is “En Bas Tu Vois,” roughly translated “You See Below” or perhaps more accurately, “You See Beneath.”  The first translation hints of a higher being peering down, the second of earthly beings piercing the physical plane to reach the spiritual.  Mattie Barbier’s trombone is layered by Davachi while Bahto again handles the visuals, which proceed from the lap of the first video while springing more quickly to color.  The hands are older, gnarled, more sedate.  The abstractions are reminiscent of the classic Underworld videos, albeit without the beat.  The dominant color becomes aqua, then gray, as if tracing the roots of humanity back to the sea and sky.

The album comes full circle with “O World and the Clear Song,” as Rebecca Lane’s quartertone bass flute sets the stage for Davachi’s bell plate finale.  The music has descended from the spire to the sanctuary, perfectly preserved, holiness intact.  Did the listener feel?  Did the listener ponder?  Did the listener pray?  On Two Sisters, Davachi creates the atmosphere for all such activities, opening a tall wooden door while delicately hinting where it might lead.  (Richard Allen)

The Quietus

In 2014, during the lead up to their US premiere in Tennessee, the experimental supergroup Nazoranai, which consists of Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Stephen O’Malley, were the subject of a documentary by filmmakers Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss. At one point during the film, O’Malley describes a time when he was stopped from interrupting a Haino “soundcheck” because the Japanese musician was processing all of the oxygen in the venue, inhaling and exhaling for an hour until he was satisfied that all of the particles had passed through his respiratory system. On Two Sisters, it feels as if Sarah Davachi is permeating our pores in a similar fashion.

Her new album is ninety minutes of serene chamber drone bookended by the pitched percussive tolling of the University of Michigan’s fifty-three bell carillon, the third heaviest in the world. Through grainy, muscular and textured pieces, cleaved from violin, viola, cello, and an array of organs, brass, and flutes, she burrows into mournful sounds that are held for so long that they move right through you, sinking into your body by way of flapping eardrums and emanating out through your cells, capillaries, and veins. It’s a molecular transformation. One that could deftly change the feeling of a room via a single resonating note.

Compared to last year’s Antiphonals, which was a solitary effort by Davachi, Two Sisters appears to celebrate escaping the plague years by engaging in much sought after collaboration with a multitude of musicians, engineers, and producers. Often, when the number of participants increases, the artist’s vision can be diluted but, on the evidence of the multiple tracks with double digit minutes, it seems that the focus of the sixteen co-conspirators was acute. It all feels very personal. Like it’s the work of a singular artist. Particularly when we are invited to sit with such slow, heaving tones for stretches that envy those legendary bastions of unbridled sustain, Sunn O))).

Much like the be-robed duo’s output, these are long-form, detailed compositions. The undulations and subtle tonal modulations of which take on similarities to the patient and discreet fluctuations of slow cinema greats such as Béla Tarr and Scott Barley. The former in particular with The Turin Horse, a film that lurches from an engrossing study of the mundane to borderline bludgeoning repetition. The states intermingle and overlap, becoming one and the same.

That’s not to say that this dabbles in tedium. Quite the opposite. It’s enthralling, enrapturing, invigorating, even. If you’ve enjoyed spending time with the lengthy organ pieces of Kali Malone or MMMD’s burring strings, you’ll find kin here. It’s a languid sea of sound that slow-motion shuffle-dances from tranquility to unease and back again. It is something to sit with. To contemplate.

There’s power in dissonance to unsettle and in harmony to please. Sarah Davachi is delving deep into the intervals between these states, to the place where emotion dwells, and is holding us down there until we can feel it roaring through our lungs.

Just don’t forget to breathe.

Share this article:

Pitchfork

Read Vanessa Ague’s review of the album.

Resident Advisor

When Sarah Davachi was in her early 20s and still living in Canada, she worked at a musical instrument museum in Calgary. Once her shifts ended, she would hang ..