Pascal Savy – Liminal
Pascal Savy’s “Liminal” has been already out for quite a while now. But as it goes, there was like a hundred of other things that needed to be done first, before I could take care of this. Nevertheless no reason to let this great release pass with any comment. “Falling inward” the first track of the album starts off with beating drones and small delicate bell tones. Although it dives deeper and deeper into more bass-y states, it still retains an ethereal touch with its floating tones and crackles. As the album progresses, Savy introduces more dark notions that remain in focus until the very end, where the curtain gets lifted a little to open up again to lighter times.
There’s a great sense of longing that doesn’t really reach the surfaces in these four tracks. This indifference, this play with absence and focus is one of the major strengths of “Liminal”. It’s great to hear, how Savy manages to evoke an emotional effect without relying too much on tonal sounds. Except for some synth bleeps here and there and melodic residue buried deeply within the sounds, there is mostly fuzzy static and thick, warm reverberant drones. The crackles in the background, which sometimes hint towards field-recordings and sometimes sound more like bad cable connections, add a distant nostalgic patina to the tracks that suites them pretty well.
The only thing that bothered me a little, was the short duration of the tracks, which all have a length somewhere around the five minute mark. I’d love to hear, with what Savy comes up with, if he’d expand on the duration of his tracks. To me they seem to demand for going longer and turning even more inward.
Anyways, this is a great release and hopefully there are some physical copies left at the Feedbacklooop Label, as “Liminal” had quite a limited number of copies.
