Pascal Savy: Fragments
Hibernate

Over the past few years, Pascal Savy's built up a modest body of high-quality work, and his latest release, Fragments, enhances the impression established by his previous recordings. This particular outing finds the London, UK-based sound artist contributing a three-track EP to Hibernate's three-inch disc series. It's a true headphones listen in the sense that close listening is recommended for one to appreciate the dense weaves of textural detail Savy works into the material. The laptop-produced tracks are crepuscular in nature, with the titles alone—“Passing Light,” “By Dusk,” and “On Leaving”—capturing their twilight character. In simplest terms, the release amounts to twenty minutes of meditative, hiss-laden shimmer dotted with subtle colourations of sparkles, speckles, and field recordings-derived rustlings. Perhaps the EP's most ear-catching moments appear during “On Leaving” when the sound palette expands to not only evoke literal departure (the crunch of footsteps through natural undergrowth, for example) but to introduce the slightest hint of an ambient-dub dimension—suggestive of a beatless Vladislav Delay episode, perhaps—as it does so. Fragments is a solid addition to what has grown into a fairly substantial series of three-inch releases from Hibernate.

February 2012