In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, American mythologist Joseph Campbell uses tales from antiquity to chart the “Hero’s Journey,” the cyclical sequence of departure, initiation, and return which serves as the basis for mythic narrative. While this may ring true in the world of fables, practically speaking, I’ve always found personal journeys to resemble curves rather than circles; soft arcs of change that bend imperceptibly, but eventually, toward resolution. Oakland recording artist sachi’s mirror appears to agree. On her debut album, Talking in a Different Way, she opens a portal to a celestial plane of orchestral, fourth-world trip-hop that embraces patience as a means of evocation and wandering as a way to move on.
Sachi’s mirror is the alias of Shaina Pan,…