Pascal Savy – Simulacra (Album – Cyclic Law)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Ambient, Drone.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: French artist Pascal Savy is living in London (UK) and already busy for numerous years. “Simulacra” is his debut album for Cyclic Law and is inspired by the turmoil in the UK and world-wide.
Content: The tracks have been conceived by overwhelming, heavy sound waves. They’ll have been progressively built up and constructed from different field recordings and noise sources. There’s a mix of acoustic and electronic noises which have been manipulated into obscure sound waves. It creates an ominous sensation which is often ending into an obscure, poignant, sonic cataclysm.
+ + + : I can’t remember to have heard of this artist before but I can already tell you I’ll not soon forget the “Simulacra”-experience. Pascal Savy rather sounds as a sound engineer and technician instead of a true musician. He decompose and recompose sounds and noises creating a unique sound experience. But the magic of the work is also the way he built up his song structures. It makes me think to a spider which is patently building and rebuilding its web to catch insects. The spider has been transposed into a sound architect and the listeners are the spiders imprisoned in the web. It’s a tormenting sound experience but that’s exactly what I’m expecting listening to this kind of music. I like the sound treatments featuring low, buzzing, sounds which are reinforced by drones.
– – – : The very last cut of the work is the single piece which can’t convince me. It’s an antithesis to a great work although I’m not complaining.
Conclusion: “Simulacra” is a great piece of music revealing an artist who definitely has found his place among the great Cyclic Law roster.
Best songs: “Simulation Of Power”, “Hyperreality”, “Forever Radiant”, “Hyperspace Without Atmopshere”.
Rate: 8½.
Artist: www.pascalsavy.bandcamp.com
Label: www.cycliclaw.com / www.facebook.com/cycliclaw
About Pascal Savy
Pascal Savy is a French sound artist based in London, active in electronic music since the late 1990s. He started in techno and trance before the work of Autechre and Oval pushed him toward drone and ambient composition; by his own account the turn came around 2007, when he stripped the rhythmic and melodic elements from a track and brought its background layers to the fore. Savy released several full-length albums before signing to Cyclic Law for “Simulacra”, inspired by Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” and Mark Fisher’s “The Weird and the Eerie” and shaped around the political and social turmoil in the UK and elsewhere.
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