Composer Sarah Davachi's The Head as Form'd in the Crier's Choir is the latest entry in an already remarkable body of modern classical work that spans chamber, drone, electroacoustic, pop and minimalist music. While key instruments like the organ have consistently served as the linchpin of her practice, Davachi's compositions make use of an extended toolkit of synthesizers, ensembles of strings, brass and voice, tape manipulation, guitar and more. As with any composer who strives to translate some version of their musical practice to the performance setting, Davachi has had to consider what resemblance her mostly solo live performances could have to some of her more ornate composed work, and vice versa.
The Head… is the artistic culmination of that work. 2020's Cantus, Descant, a highlight in Davachi's discography, was thrilling in its packaging of the harmonic and tonal complexity of centuries of compositional practices into taut and memorable songs. However wonderful the results, some of the ecstatic quality of Davachi's performances might have been lost for those who have experienced the sheer physicality of the pipe organ in the flesh. The proceeding Antiphonals and Two Sisters represented concerted efforts to address the divide between studio and live settings and thereby better represent Davachi as composer and performer.
If those collections were the building of a bridge, The Head… is a bridge that is overgrown and weathered by the passage of time and the power of creative forces. Through the attempt to meld the pure intention of the studio environment and the raw happenstance of live performance, Davachi has suffused these compositions with a charming ferality. They don't exactly lack purpose, but their trajectory and underlying logic doesn't feel entirely predictable. One way that this fluidity manifests is in the duration of the pieces. Several of these compositions were written with variability of length in mind and the result is that even the most contemplative of pieces courses with an improvisatory electricity. There's a short pause at about the two-minute mark of "The Crier's Choir" that is breathtaking in how it marks the transition of the solo pipe organ piece from a spritely mode to one of restraint.
This unpredictability is also built into the way the instruments weave in and out of several compositions. "Possente Spirto" and "Res Sub Rosa" are kindred works in this sense, as they both rely on the contingent judgment of the performers. The trombone performances in both pieces are album highlights on account of their warm but no-less piercing tonality, and the harmonic interaction of the bass flutes and bass clarinets in the latter piece is a beautiful reminder that modern composition can be visceral amidst the usual intellectualization.
Much more than a bridge between studio practice and live performance, The Head… establishes a path forward for Davachi's compositions. As is often the case when attempting to reconcile two creative inclinations, Davachi has come out the other side with that secret, synthesized, mystical third thing. If there was ever any acquiescence to the particularities of one or another mode of creation on the part of Davachi, The Head as Form'd in the Crier's Choir is a sign that that is now over, and that she's freed herself to fully embrace the impulses that have made her work so rewarding all along.