Tags
ambient, drone, Eric Harding, Head Shoppe, indie, Kenneth James Gibson, Meadows Heavy Recorders, minimalism, music, music review, Paul Carman
Murals for Immersion is the perfect title for the latest release from Kenneth James Gibson, because its eight tracks are not so much songs as abstract paintings you can stare at for hours, washes of colors that might not have any literal meaning but evoke an emotional response. And although you can easily play this album in the background while doing something creative, meditating, or blissing out, it rewards the attentive listener who is willing to immerse in its depths.
Most of what you will hear are saxophone tracks performed by Paul Carman, who played and recorded with Frank Zappa. For this project, Carman recorded numerous drones and melodic fragments which Gibson processed, sculpted, and arranged into a forty-five minute soundscape, filled out on the lower end by oceanic swells from a Moog Prodigy.
Like the last Gibson album I reviewed here, the result is a deeply peaceful listening experience—sometimes pensive or slightly dissonant for added color—that reminds me how I used to feel when spending hours on the beach of the Pacific Northwest on an overcast afternoon fading into evening, watching the waves, pondering life, sometimes catching the call of a distant foghorn.
If you are into soothing, meditative sounds, Gibson will soon be releasing another collaboration called Head Shoppe, featuring the acoustic guitar of songwriter Eric Harding blended with tape loops, gently whirling synths, and field recordings. Though I have no idea what tranquil, psychedelic field they could have been recorded in, I’d like to visit it some day. It seems like a place that can calm your soul.
That’s the magic Gibson and his collaborators create: taking you somewhere beautiful that seems at once familiar and otherworldy, like a sunset on another planet—or a canvas in a museum that only exists in dreams.
Collector’s Guide: Find Murals for Immersion on Bandcamp direct from the artist at https://kennethjamesgibson.bandcamp.com/album/murals-for-immersion. Head Shoppe is now available at https://headshoppe.bandcamp.com/album/head-shoppe.
Mars Will Send No More 