With more than a decade of recordings behind her - becoming increasingly more prolific and ambitious every step of the way - the Canadian born, Los Angeles based composer, Sarah Davachi, is among the most exciting voices in the landscape of contemporary experimental music: the creator of works of a sublime and balanced grace that utilise a fascinating array of tuning systems to sculpt immersive, minimal spaces. Incredibly prolific over the last few years - having released no less than six full-lengths since 2022 - Davachi now returns with “Music for a Bellowing Room”, an astounding collaboration with the Los Angeles based filmmaker, Dicky Bahto, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, issued by Davachi’s own Late Music imprint. Comprising three long-form pieces that collectively amount to roughly three hours of music, this is unquestionably among the composer’s most remarkable gestures to date: an all-consuming expanse of durational sonority, dancing with the visual realm. “Music for a Bellowing Room” is issued as a stunning 3CD + Blu-ray edition (each CD contains one piece, while the Blu-ray contains all three films / sound pieces) housed in an eight-panel wide-spine card wallet, we’re loving every minute of this truly towering release.

Born and raised in Western Canada, Sarah Davachi initially studied at the University of Calgary, before receiving her master's degree in electronic music and recording media from Mills College. With a developing career well underway and seven full-lengths already behind her on noteworthy imprints like Full Spectrum, Cassauna, Constellation Tatsu, Students of Decay, and Aventures Ltd. - the majority of which were met with critical acclaim - in 2017 she relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a PhD in Musicology at UCLA. Davachi’s practice, as it has developed over the last decade, represents a rare hybrid within contemporary experimental sound practice. Like members of previous generations of avant-garde composers - Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Lou Harrison, Harry Partch, etc. - she seeks resonance and meaning through a relationship with forms of music that do not utilise (and usually predate) the tuning system of equal temperament. Unlike the aforementioned composers, who drew inspiration from South and East Asian traditions - India, Java, China, Japan, etc. - in their respective cases, Davachi taps the European medieval and early music traditions for her own. Hers is a form of experimental music that alludes to a continuum, passing through the ages, at the very heart of expression through sound.

In 2023, Davachi received a commission from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to compose a new work. In response, she enlisted the Los Angeles based filmmaker, Dicky Bahto, an artist who has collaborated widely within the realms of experimental music with the likes of Liz Harris, Julia Holter, and Tashi Wada, and the creator of a body of works that incorporates still and motion picture photography, sound, and performance within a vast range of contexts. The resulting piece “Music for a Bellowing Room”, which received its premiere performance in September 2023, stands as one of Davachi’s most ambitious efforts to date: roughly three hours of immersive minimalism, accompanied by Bahto’s stunningly beautiful visual, montage abstractions that gently usher territories of experimental cinema first pioneered by Jonas Mekes and Stan Brakhage, among others, into the 21st Century.

“Music for a Bellowing Room” is divided into three long-form parts, each of which, because of subtle differences between them, could be regarded as interconnected, individual pieces. Described as “an exercise in resolution, inviting the audience to shift their concentration and perception through gradual changes in sound and image”, each part encounters Davachi, who has largely focused on composing for acoustic instrumentation in recent years, returning to the electroacoustic realms within which she initially made her name, utilising a palette of tape loops, synth and delay.

Effectively a work of immersive, minimalist drone, across each of the three parts of “Music for a Bellowing Room” Davachi deploys captured fragments of acoustic instruments - looped strings and organ phrases - played against delicate interventions on synthesiser, the slow, meticulous evolutions of which nod toward the relationships of time and sonic space explored by composers like Éliane Radigue and Phill Niblock. Harmonically complex while not overcomplicated, dense while remaining remarkably spacious, over the course of three hours Davachi draws the listener toward microscopic details and tonal interplays, wrapped in a hazy, consciousness altering ambient glow.

Absolutely amazing and stunningly beautiful in an elegantly unassertive way, it’s hard not to be completely captivated by “Music for a Bellowing Room”. Offered in two distinct experiences - the pure audio, as well as audio / visual - both Davachi and Bahto hand over some of the most striking work of their respective careers, and we’ve loved every minute of it. Issued by Davachi’s own Late Music imprint, “Music for a Bellowing Room” is released as 3CD + Blu-ray edition (each CD contains one piece, while the Blu-ray contains all three film / sound pieces) housed in an eight-panel wide-spine card wallet. We can’t recommend it enough.