SÁDON | Earth

Cassette, Digital, EP /

BLWBCK027 – Release date : January 14th, 2013
Tape {55 c.} C30 + digital

Like the northern winds & plains of its native Russia, the music of Sádon is cold and wide, freezing all around you. During the 20 minutes of this debut EP, the St-Petersburg duo blows all its spleen straight inside of your chest, served by a lo-fi and oxidizing production making the sound more abstract. ‘Earth’ is a mix of elongated guitar chords, tragic vocals and melody-drenched distorsion, twirling into clouds of edgeless textures and tones. Six pop songs covered by a feral sadness, pure as naive. ‘Earth’ is the first of 4-EPs serie.

01.In (1:43)
02.Magma (2:47)
03.Little Maple (4:02)
04.Shame On Board (4:09)
05.Sacrifice (3:25)
06.Father / The White Time (4:34)

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Aleksey Aleksandrov
at Solid Rock Studio, Saint-Petersburg, october 2012.
music written and played by Donat Mavleev & Sanya Vorobey
Artwork by Romain Barbot
http://sadon.bandcamp.com

PRESS QUOTES


Earth is the first of four EPs to be released by Sádon, a Russian duo that works with dreamy landscapes of sweet, sweet drone. It embraces the expanse of its subject matter in a way that makes sound escape, move from your speakers or headphones past your body and away towards infinity. It probably reflects our own manner of being in the world, confined, for the most part, by our architecture and social contracts, a manner of blocking the flow of time, wind, water, and plants as much as that of animals, a flow that is primordially pulled by the vastness of the unknown, by the possibility of a change that is perpetual. Likewise, this is music meant for horizons restricted to a little EP, a series of sounds which feel like must be followed through caves and the clearings of forests reaching only the walls of our homes and emphasizing the illusory movement implied by the glass of our windows.Yet, the gravity of Earth is not quite completely physical (not entirely up to reverb); it draws its more potent element from the sparse, slow chords and the sharp, soft vocals (which remind this listener of both Pyramids and Gregor Samsa) that create an ambience of melancholy, an urge for the ever-out-of-hand, a certain resigned craving that imaginatively demolishes all barriers in the way towards unbridled passion. The tracks slowly shift, like seasons within minutes, always underlined by noisy echoes and electronics, at times clearly in the grasp of rhythm, and at others diffusing it so as to escape the passing of time. The shortness of the EP betrays its depth, not that of an ocean but that of looking forward over a field and sensing a breathtaking endlessness under the sun. It feels merely like a glimpse, a sudden realization, and suitably, like it’s not enough. It never is with music, is it? Sadon’s debut promises really good things, and it shows that the artists have a very clear, interesting understanding of the sounds they are making in the sense that they perfectly return to a unifying feeling, a single idea of what the name of the EP and those of the tracks (even if a couple do remit to a New Age version of the idea, such as “Sacrifice”) might reveal about the Earth, which is in the case of this interpretation a way of exploring the literal greatness of a landscape often forgotten by those of us who look up and see only an attempt to move away from it, not towards the stars but the hearts of cities, where all horizons go to die. Hopefully, the next EPs, whatever their themes, will be just as intense, as deep as this bright first step towards everything. – David Murrieta for A Closer Listen

Sádon is a new project hailing from Russia’s Saint-Petersburg and Earth is their official debut. This is a small release, put out on a cassette and as a digital download by the French tape label BLWBCK (also releasing Appalache, Saåad, Misery etc.) Earth is the first of a four-EP series, which I guess will be somehow interconnected as length, aesthetics, concepts and sound. The latter here is very specific. The music Donat Mavleev and Sanya Vorobey are playing is placed somewhere between lo-fi ambient, minimalist post-rock and drone. In a short talk I was able to discuss their understanding about music and their aims. Sádon were very brief, yet thorough ‘All what we’ve made and liked has consciously or unconsciously followed one purpose – to tame the passion. It could be something loud and aggressive, but also quiet and pure. One thing is certain – in the end is always eternal peace.’ Earth is a fragmentary collection of music of six short pieces. ‘Our tracks are short like our lives. We would like to change that, but we cannot.’ said Sádon. They are produced in a very homogeneous fashion, but they sound quite diverse from one another. The opener In is charged with a lot of energy and almost deceivingly adjusts your mind for a heavier and darker follower. However the record doesn’t work like that at all. As a general impression Earth resembles more the sense of wandering in the unknown, rather than the slow unfolding of a carefully considered process. Little Maple is a drifting soundscape marked at some points by a subtle use of voice, which later is moving more to the front of the record. The first time I heard Magma and Sacrifice I was slightly reminded of Birds of Passage, but actually the cold and sadness found in Sádon’s music has nothing to do with Alicia Merz’s warm and intimate drone/folk works.Still, Earth is a really personal album, at least it sounds that way. It’s icy and mesmerizing. Probably the fact that it is a short one comes as a plus, because otherwise you could be eternally frozen in it. It’s great how such a small EP can raise so many questions, as it is obviously overwhelmingly soaked with passion. And the fact that the record is the first of a series makes you really wonder how/if the duo will change in their upcoming work, or the fragmentary and impulsive approach to music is actually an already established style and not only a result of a new band’s search for its sound. ‘For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. Our music should be made and listened step-by-step.’ said Sanya and Donat and I guess we’ll just have to wait a bit more to see/hear where will Sádon bring us next time. Until then we’ll study the Earth. – Angel S. for Heathen Harvest (5/5)