Sophia Saze is a Brooklyn-based artist who fell in love with dance and classical music as a child in Tbilisi, Georgia, and is now working in the realm of experimental dance music. Solace is her latest release and the first through her own freshly re-minted Dusk & Haze label/collective.
Eponymous opener "Solace" seems to be the opposite of what you'd think based on the title, with dark bass echoes, tense synth sequencing and dirty, grainy drums. The title of the first remix by Umwelt, the "Hide From Reality Remix," might better illustrate the meaning of 'solace' in this sense: it's an escape into something dark and unusual, perhaps a trip away from the bright banality of the everyday. The "Into Reality Remix" then completes the journey, wrapping up the fluid 17-minute set in the first half of (the digital version of) this EP. The vinyl version switches the latter and "Lost (Benjamin Damage Remix)," presumably for time restrictions in that format.
The trance continues through "Shed," an ecstatic but hypnotic groover, while "Burn" ventures into more experimental, murky and acidic territory, with indistinguishable vocal snippets and squelchy bass. "Dawn" then closes the set with a beatless haze of droning, organ-like sounds, ghostly piano and more undecipherable vocals.
The whole affair is unsettling but still inviting, like the grimiest little hole-in-the-wall dive bar you've ever had fun in.
(Dusk & Haze)Eponymous opener "Solace" seems to be the opposite of what you'd think based on the title, with dark bass echoes, tense synth sequencing and dirty, grainy drums. The title of the first remix by Umwelt, the "Hide From Reality Remix," might better illustrate the meaning of 'solace' in this sense: it's an escape into something dark and unusual, perhaps a trip away from the bright banality of the everyday. The "Into Reality Remix" then completes the journey, wrapping up the fluid 17-minute set in the first half of (the digital version of) this EP. The vinyl version switches the latter and "Lost (Benjamin Damage Remix)," presumably for time restrictions in that format.
The trance continues through "Shed," an ecstatic but hypnotic groover, while "Burn" ventures into more experimental, murky and acidic territory, with indistinguishable vocal snippets and squelchy bass. "Dawn" then closes the set with a beatless haze of droning, organ-like sounds, ghostly piano and more undecipherable vocals.
The whole affair is unsettling but still inviting, like the grimiest little hole-in-the-wall dive bar you've ever had fun in.
