Sacha Sacket
Shadowed
Masterful piano, string section, full band, ambient electronics, rich voice, powerful songs, and a bleeding heart...
“I experienced a harrowing descent on this album,” Sacha Sacket confesses on his sophomore work, Shadowed (2004). “I felt it was time to delve into ‘dark things,’ go places where I degraded myself, where I was a doormat, where I would destroy someone if I could. Not in an attempt to immediately rectify or justify myself, just to express it. I had to be damaged, to have faults, to show the darkness.”
What is perhaps most surprising with Shadowed, however, is its stunning beauty and persistent faith. This is not an album thrust in a mire of self-defeat. Baroque-like strings flow into an electronic soundscape with dramatic sensitivity. Acoustic instruments fuse seamlessly with electronic, resulting in an entirely ethereal vision. The album creates a lush, sumptuous, almost underwater world. “I discovered failing doesn’t necessarily equate flailing,” Sacket smirks. “In a way, Shadowed redefined my vision of what ‘hell’ could be. I found a deep romance, a beautiful vulnerability, a world awash with moonlight. In all my struggles, I found an incredible peace and quietude, a powerful sense of faith and purity. In reality, it is the most difficult times when we discover how strong and resilient we truly are. Where we are actually renewed.”
Sacket’s music is not one for easy comparison. His remarkable and plaintive sensitivity conjures thoughts of a post-millennial Nick Drake, while a beautiful, textured piano recalls his classical past – a young obsession with Beethoven. His talent, however, is undeniable. Armed with a unique and powerful voice, which is perhaps his greatest asset, Sacket grabs your heart and never fails to deliver.
The song “Kite High!” could easily be a radio staple for disenfranchised youth in need of a shining light. “It really came out of one of my lowest lows,” Sacket reveals. “I was at this point of feeling like a complete failure in life, in everything I was doing. I was far from finishing the album. I was completely useless in every sense. It was about that time that I began surfing in Malibu, and it really just released me. I stopped trying to control life and just went for the ride.”
An inspired Sacket became incredibly prolific as he explored complex characters with cathartic reflection and a dramatic styling for what became the twelve-track album. “I really went to those life and death situations where a life is beginning or ending. Where your humanity truly reveals itself, when your character is tested – the underlying truth. There is an absolute need and compulsion for honesty in whatever I write. What you hear is my barest self.”
Easy Listening: Soft Rock