Sarah Davachi - Cantus, Descant (2LP)

There’s a reason people keep talking about Cantus, Descant in quiet, almost reverent tones. Sarah Davachi’s 2020 double album landed like a soft bell in a still room, and it hasn’t really stopped ringing. Released on her own Late Music imprint, it feels like a statement of intent, right down to the title that points to chant and harmony, the old and the new laying side by side. Davachi is a Canadian composer known for patience and restraint, and here she folds those qualities into a record that’s both intimate and architectural. It’s music that moves slowly enough to let you notice the grain of each sound, the way light falls across a room.

The core of Cantus, Descant is the pipe organ, though that undersells how varied these organs are. Davachi recorded across different instruments and spaces, and you can hear the rooms as much as the pipes. A church’s long stone decay, a hall’s softer air, a small instrument breathing close to the microphone. Her voice appears too, not as a pop lead but as another instrument, often stacked and shadowing the organ’s sustained tones. The blend nods to early music and plainchant, but it’s not a historical exercise. It’s very much her language, tuned to that fine line where harmonic shifts feel less like chord changes and more like changes in weather.

On vinyl, this stuff blooms. The low-frequency murmur of long tones, the subtle beating between close intervals, the tiny fluctuations in air and key action become an environment rather than just notes. A good pressing of Cantus, Descant vinyl opens up the edges of the sound and lets the room around the organ breathe. That’s where the album gets you. Not in a big hook, but in the way a held chord gathers overtones until it glows. It’s the rare ambient-adjacent record that has real physical presence. If you’ve been hunting for Sarah Davachi vinyl, this is the one that turns a living room into a listening chapel.

Critics heard it too. The album drew strong notices from outlets like Pitchfork and The Quietus, who picked up on the clarity of the writing and the depth of the performances. It came out during a year when many of us were living more quietly than usual, and it met that moment without feeling opportunistic. You can put it on late at night and it works like a small ritual. But it also rewards close, analytical listening. There’s careful use of temperament and voicing at play, the kind of decisions that come from someone who has spent years with both historical instruments and analogue synthesisers. You sense the composer’s ear for detail in the way a line sits just above or below another, creating those shimmering, wavering halos.

I keep thinking about how human it feels. Minimal music can drift into the academic if the balance is off. Davachi keeps the pulse of breath in her tones, so even at its slowest the music feels lived-in rather than clean-room sterile. The voice is key to that. When it enters, it doesn’t break the spell, it deepens it. The album’s pacing is spot on too. Across the four sides, the pieces rise and fall in a way that never feels programmatic. You can drop the needle anywhere and settle in, or ride the full arc and feel the record gather its own logic.

If you’re crate-digging or browsing a Melbourne record store and you see the spine peeking out, don’t hesitate. It’s the kind of album that sneaks into your routine and becomes a reference point. For collectors building out a shelf of Sarah Davachi albums on vinyl, it sits comfortably alongside later Late Music releases and shows where that current began. And if you’re looking to buy Sarah Davachi records online from a shop that actually cares how this sort of music should sound on a turntable, keep an eye on the better-curated corners of vinyl records Australia. The stock doesn’t tend to linger.

Cantus, Descant isn’t about volume or novelty. It’s about patience, tuning, resonance, memory. It feels modern yet ancient, a conversation between pipes, room and voice that keeps revealing small details every time you sit with it. That’s the mark of a keeper.