Numun - Voyage Au Soleil (2020)

Numün is a trio of New York City soundscape designers who
combine a wide range of music and visual influences to create
hypnotic aural and visual experiences. The band members include
“ambient country” pioneer Bob Holmes (from SUSS) as well as new
music composer and artist, Joel Mellin, and percussionist and
multi-instrumentalist Chris Romero (both from Gamelan Dharma
Swara). Their influences range from sonic artists like Brian Eno
and Morton Subotnick, to the environmental visual artists Olafur
Eliason and Elias Romero, to Balinese composer I Nyoman Windha
and shadow puppet master I Wayan Wija. As individual artists,
their work has been seen and heard at MOMA, The Met, Basilica
Hudson, The Bali Arts Festival, NPR, New Sounds, Echoes, and
has been featured in Mojo, Wire, Pitchfork and Aquarium
Drunkard.

Numün’s first album, “voyage au soleil”, will be released on
Musique Impossible in Fall 2020. The original sessions came out
of a project to commemorate the 50th anniversary of man’s first
landing on the moon. The initial track, “Tranquility Base” was
featured on the compilation, “The Moon and Back – One Small Step
for Global Pop” and released on London-based WIAIWYA that same
year. With 1969 as a starting point, numün began exploring what
that period of history meant to them both personally and
musically. Using a combination of traditional Balinese and
Americana instrumentation, along with synthesizers and loop
manipulation reminiscent of their musique concrete forbearers,
numün created soundscapes that explored the hope, turmoil, and
psychedelic escape and promise of that pivotal era. The final
result is 6 tracks that take the listener on a trip to the heart
of the sun.
The album's first track, tranceport, is a welcoming that coaxes
the listener into the vast, atmospheric numün experience with
seemingly disparate instrumentation that includes a cümbüs (a
fretless turkish banjo), a mellotron, a '52 gibson hollowbody,
violin, and Balinese gongs. As is the beautiful heartache of
any journey into the beyond, the periodic gong cycles signal
both a beginning and an end - they're one and the same, and yet,
with a twist at the end, this one track exemplifies numün’s
unique musical style as both surprising and reassuring. With the
journey begun, the second track, first steps is a story of
finding your bearings in unfamiliar territory: the tremolo
twang juxtaposed against the strident cümbüs combine as if David
Lynch's Twin Peaks were set on the far side of the moon.
tranquility base, the album's third track, is a memoir of the
journey to date - from launch, to exploration, to looking back
at our collective past and, yet, toward the future. Supported by
Trina Basu's (Brooklyn Raga Massive) beguiling violin work,
Tranquility base is a swirling narrative that unfolds before the
ears and expresses the optimistic hope that permeates numün’s
work.

mission loss, the album's 4th track, is what happens when those
plans change. The transformation of the polyrhythms of this
piece are a 'Space Oddity' as directed by Olaf Eliason as the
mission changes from a return home to a journey to the sun. And
as situations change, the penultimate track, expanse, sets the
listener into the introspective space between any here and any
there. Featuring harpsichord and a brief theremin, expanse,
speaks to the unknown and uneasiness before determination sets
in, as does the final title track, voyage au soleil. Somewhere
between Beck's 'Morning Phase' and Anton Newcombe, voyage au
soleil is a mission that only goes in one direction - forward.