As if Savagerus’s debut single “L’ange dans la mer” was meant to exist in its own moment in time. The ambient intro of wispy synth-textures coaxes you into a state of trance before the hushed, almost murmured female vocals commence. Effortlessly airy, yet somber and meaningful. The mixture of French and Latin words adds an air of the enigmatic to the lyrical themes, allowing the listener to float between translation and tone. It’s not the song for every word to be perfectly understood, but rather to let them wash over you.
The pace of the music is a sensual crawl, so the first thing you might not notice is that there’s an angel being drowned. Not by water, but by her emotions and memories and yearnings. The production quality is vivid and spacious, with a cascade of reverb-laden echoes, micro-drum-patterns and almost sighing airy-breaths of vocals adding to your suspension in space as you find yourself floating with her. If the song has an erotic tinge to it, Savagerus keeps it tasteful with it communicated in feelings and mood and music rather than anything overt. She makes you feel it in an achingly vulnerable way that makes her seem so human while creating a song about drowning angels.
Fans of artists like Delerium or Mylène Farmer will certainly not feel lost with this song. Savagerus, however, has made a song that holds up on its own. While some of the qualities of her music may place it in a genre of crossover, it still felt too specific to quite place. Mystic and sensual and atmospheric, the song just feels like a whisper under the water. Savagerus has created something so intimate, so dreamy, and so breathtakingly beautiful effortlessly. You do not hear this song, you feel it like silk against your skin as you fall into a deep, restful ocean.
English