If you love albums as journeys, or journeys as albums, composer and classically trained keyboardist Sarah Davachi’s Cantus, Descant was made for you.
Davachi traveled the globe to play six different organs, in situ, for the music that makes up Cantus, Descant:
Electric organ, piano, Mellotron, voice, synthesizer, and strings recorded October and November 2019 at Alms Vert in Los Angeles, California, USA
Van Straten pipe organ (1479), set to quarter-comma meantone; recorded August 2019 at Orgelpark in Amsterdam, Netherlands, bellows by Hans Fidom
E.M. Skinner pipe organ (1928); recorded June 2019 at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel in Chicago, Illinois, USA
Casavant Frères pipe organ (1964); recorded August 2017 at Pacific Spirit United Church in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Poul-Gerhard Andersen pipe organ (1975); recorded March 2019 at Sankt Johannes Kirke in Copenhagen, Denmark
Story & Clark reed organ (ca 1890); recorded February 2019 at The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, California, USA
I hear whispers of Terry Riley woven into these mysterious meditative minimal songs which account for 1 hour and 21 minutes of other-worldly travel time. Released on Davachi’s own Late Music label, Cantus, Descant (Voice, a voice above or removed from others) acts as the perfect end and beginning if we’re counting in years.