Braided Sanctuary from Pavement Saints by Mournel

# About This Track: Braided Sanctuary

Discovered in a rain-soaked tunnel beneath the old Westside cemetery, this piece emerged from an unexpected moment of grace. We had sheltered from a sudden downpour, our equipment barely protected by waxed canvas, when we noticed how water droplets created perfect metronomic patterns against different surfaces—metal pipes, stone ledges, hollow concrete.

The clock-like rhythms form the backbone of "Braided Sanctuary," interlacing and overlapping like whispered conversations. Many listeners have described experiencing a profound sense of temporal suspension while hearing these patterns dissolve into each other—as if time itself becomes malleable within the sanctuary we discovered.

Warm organ tones rise beneath the ticking, offering rare moments of consonance in our typically austere soundscape. The bowed saw's plaintive voice wavers between certainty and dissolution, mirroring how these makeshift shelters exist in perpetual fragility.

When performed live, we recreate the sanctuary's essence by suspending tarnished pocket watches above contact mics, their subtle movements amplified and scattered through the performance space. Audience members often close their eyes during the bell sequence—a collective moment of remembrance that transforms the venue into something between concert hall and memorial chapel.

The filtered bell tolls that appear midway weren't planned. We captured them from a distant church while recording at the tunnel entrance, their resonance somehow finding perfect harmony with our improvised drones. This happy accident became the emotional fulcrum of the entire piece—a brief intersection where structured ritual meets abandoned space.

Within these interwoven temporal markers and gentle harmonic swells lies an aural landscape of provisional safety—places where the displaced and forgotten create momentary respite from persistent erosion. The track gradually releases its tension, allowing breath to return, offering not resolution but a temporary reprieve from vigilance.

We listen for graves breathing and make those sounds into music. Forgotten crypts, drowned tombstones, moss-swallowed bones—our recorders capture what lies under silence. Memory refuses to vanish. We preserve what whispers from broken stones.