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Kenneth James Gibson (synthesizers, arrangements) and Paul Carman (saxophone) have collaborated on Murals for Immersion, a new full-length album.
The word “murals” both signals the musicians’ intent and ever so slightly risks doing the recordings an injustice. Certainly these slow-paced, jazz-inflected pieces are deeply ambient in nature: They work well in the background, immediately lending a space (or headphones) a lulling sense of slowed time, of patient retreat. The horn parts and the hushed synthesizers in combination bring to mind the Fourth World music of the late Jon Hassell, albeit minus any glitchy effects. It’s all moody haze, all the time, and all the better for it.
Then again, a “mural” isn’t a background in the same way wallpaper is. Wallpaper music and mural music would be very different things. This is mural music in the way it guides the listener over time, its abstractions changing slowly, elements coming and going. It is mural music in the sense of not being overly patterned or repetitive, in not feeling remotely mass-produced, in bringing a deliberate sense of its own presence.
“Tonio Between Two Poles” uses an echoing motif. The track is stately (imagine an alpenhorn muffled by distance), and like much of the record, it suggests a kinship to drone music while being far more complex than mere tones for their own sake. “Above Suicide Peak,” another highlight, appears to borrow its name from a location near Idyllwild Pine Cove, where Gibson lives. It takes extended pauses between echoing saxophone parts, letting the ear get accustomed to quietude before surfacing again. The whole record is worth exploring in depth. Don’t just relegate it to the background.