One read through the tracklist for Pascal Savy’s Dislocations sees the artist edging toward nihilism. Presently the album’s thematic ties to politics and individual disenchantment add an extra weight to titles like “The Slow Cancellation Of The Future”, “Echoes Of A Black Hole Eating A Star” and “Night More Viscous Than the Dawn.” Savy’s views, however, are obscured by the medium in which he dwells. These nebulous dark-drone abstractions are suggestive of humanity’s oppression, but, to their benefit, don’t scream any ideology. Along the album’s twisted journey the listener is left alone, not only to form their own conclusions, but to assume the role of navigator in this foreign and unforgiving sonic universe.
Like Jeremy Bible’s cover photo of a frozen Lake Rockwell, Savy’s compositions masterfully parallel light and dark. Somewhat ironically, the album’s opposing sonic moods hardly feel dislocated, but more-or-less sit harmoniously side by side. This intended mismatch builds a beautiful tension throughout, especially on “Retrograde Amnesia,” that fuses angelic harmonics with nature recordings and deep, oceanic permutations. It all feels like build up to the concluding track, “Allow the Light,” a punctuation mark to an album if I’ve ever heard one. In its steering toward salvation are we meant to interpret the light as rays of hope? I’ll leave that one for you.
Savy’s work fits in the here and now, but strip away its context and this music could be from any time. By no stretch is its temporal ambiguity a bad thing, as it seems to pay homage to a classic style of isolationist drone that felt ubiquitous in the 90s and early 2000s (Köner, Chalk, Stars of the Lid, etc.). It’s an era of music I’m still very fond of, and Dislocation does a good job in reminding me why I was led down this strange musical pathway to begin with, and why I never looked back.
Visit Experimedia on Bandcamp.
The Alcohol Seed 