numün - voyage au soleil Music Album Reviews

numün - voyage au soleil Music Album Reviews
The debut from this instrumental trio has the air of a purifying ritual, blending psychedelia with a loose-limbed minimalism. 

Numün’s first album, voyage au soleil, works in a stealthy, unobtrusive way. The band’s use of lowercase letters in their name and titles isn’t mere affectation; it’s a reflection of their introverted, sly methodology. Bassist Bob Holmes of the cosmic country band SUSS and guitarist Joel Mellin and percussionist Chris Romero of Gamelan Dharma Swara have arrived at a rarefied strain of instrumental music that has the air of a purifying ritual, blending the opiated psychedelia of Brightblack Morning Light with a loose-limbed minimalism that privileges subtle effects and incremental chord progressions. They achieve these results through instruments traditionally alien to rock, such as dholak, Theremin, gongs, and gender wayang.
Album-opener “tranceport” epitomizes this approach; it fades in with a feather-light drone, taking Brian Eno’s Apollo to church and to an even deeper quadrant of space. (The LP’s title translates as “trip to the sun.”) With its reverberant, two-chord bass plucks criss-crossed with the squawks of a cümbüş (a fretless Turkish banjo), Mellotron whorls, and tambourine-enhanced beats, “tranceport” morphs into a beatific psych-rock procession redolent of Chocolate Watch Band’s “Voyage of the Trieste.”

By the time the second track, “first steps”—a radiant slice of East-West psychedelia devoid of the tired tropes typically associated with this gambit—you realize that numün’s innate peacefulness guides their every move. Augmented by a snippet of astronauts conversing with President Nixon during the first moon landing (it’s jarring to hear the latter’s voice in such a blissful setting), “tranquility base” achieves liftoff through shimmering tones created by a synth version of a celeste and methodical bass riffs that add a riveting contrast and ballast to the track’s delicately beautiful atmospheres.

On their debut album, numün have created a suite of becalming songs that move at a tempo slower than a resting pulse while seemingly striving for a sacred quality. Much music in this vein has a tendency to lull you to sleep or to cloy, but voyage au soleil reveals numün as savvy navigators of paths less traveled.
Share on Google Plus

About Wanni Arachchige Udara Madusanka Perera

Hey, I'm Perera! I will try to give you technology reviews(mobile,gadgets,smart watch & other technology things), Automobiles, News and entertainment for built up your knowledge.
numün - voyage au soleil Music Album Reviews numün - voyage au soleil Music Album Reviews Reviewed by Wanni Arachchige Udara Madusanka Perera on September 24, 2020 Rating: 5

0 comments:

Post a Comment