Dominions (JAZ)

At this point, it’s safe to say that electroacoustic composer Sarah Davachi has forgotten more about synthesis than most of us would ever be able to Google. She eats analogue circuitry for breakfast, leading to some of the most profound sounds ever teased from wires.

With his cover art for Dominions, Daniel Presnell has nailed the feeling of Davachi’s album, layering a videotape warp over several imposing images of nature: rolling dunes, dense trees, and a frozen mountainside. There is something glacial about Davachi’s work here, each track rising majestically from the ether, with intricate form subsequently carved into and out of it, glossed with faint glitches of ancient technology.

While the timbres remain somewhat similar, save for the use of the Mellotron-like optical-sampler keyboard known as the Orchestron, the album has less of a brooding, droning feel than the composer’s 2015 release Barons Court, and more of an expansive, cinematic awe, with more blips on the oscilloscope and in the heartbeat of the listener. This is clearly Davachi’s domain; we just live here.