numün’s Opening

cover, OpeningDriving a lonely road late at night. Reading dreamy space opera. Or just settling in to regain your equilibrium after too much time on social media. Those are the kinds of setting where I turn to the ambient soundscapes of numün. The New York based ensemble’s third album Opening is perfect for all that and more.

Formed in 2019, numün brings together multi-instrumentalists Joel Mellin and Christopher Romero (of Gamelan Dharma Swara), and ambient country pioneer Bob Holmes of SUSS. Their first album Voyage Au Soleil built upon a “Tranquility Base,” a commemorative single these three created for the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. I found that album deeply satisfying, noting that I’m “… drawn to all kinds of music that combines acoustic and electronic in creative ways, whether that’s off-kilter folks that incorporates synthesized sounds or highly synthesized music like numün’s that includes lots of acoustic elements like guitars and violins, and blurs the lines between the two by incorporating gamelan, tabla, etc.” Their second Book of Beyond took a while to grow on me, but grow it did; I noted that the music on it was “…more grounded and internal, quite a bit less spacey, actually.”

On one track of that album they enlisted of Victoria Lo Mellin, who plays in Gamelan Dharma Swara with Joel Mellin and Christopher Romero, on the Balinese gender wayang. She’s here again on Opening, this time on flute and bass flute, both of which add some lovely colors to the compositions. Also on board this time is Willa Roberts on violin and vocals, her voice acting as yet another texture of acoustic instrumentation, as she did on a track or two of the previous album.

The effect overall is a record that demands a bit more attention of the listener; it’s at times more what I’d call experimental than ambient. Or as the album one-sheet says, “Call it what you will, the music of numün is a lullaby to fall awake to.”

Opening has a definite trajectory, or at least one that my ears and mind detect (we are pattern seeking animals, after all). The opening title track, is decidedly airy in most respects but is grounded by the repeated series of downward piano chords, as Lo Mellin’s bass flute and Roberts’s vocals intertwine. The superb closing track “Flower,” wouldn’t be out of place on a SUSS album, with Holmes’s languidly strummed acoustic guitar and deeply twanging Dobro floating on a shimmering cloud of drone, punctuated by Romero’s McCartney-esque bass guitar lines and Mellin’s delicately chiming glockenspiel.

After “Opening,” there’s the organ-rich murk of “Dharmonica,” the mysterious “Heavenly,” full of Lo Mellin’s flutes and deep percussion throbs, and “Luminous” with its folksy sound of Roberts’s violin, Holmes’s plucked and strummed acoustic guitars and Romero’s banjo-like cümbüş, rounding out the first half.

On the second half, “Reverence” like “Luminous” is downright song-like, Holmes fingerpicking a circular pattern on acoustic guitar that’s reminiscent of, say, Bert Jansch, which morphs into the ambient background as Romero’s bass and some chiming, gamelan-type percussion instruments move to the fore, with Roberts chanting a brief coda. … Which opens up into the loping (yes, “loping” on a numün album!) “Awaken,” all sunshine and movement, and leads to the delicate closer “Flower.”

An emotional focal point of the album, though, is the first track of the second half of the program, “Craqueler.” It’s a dissonant, languid, psychedelic trip through dense tones, textures and colors, emphasizing Roberts’ slowly swooping vocals. Her exploration of microtones seems to nod toward both south/southeast Asian modes and Eastern European polyphony.

It’s comforting to find numün continuing to expand its sonic palette with woodwinds, violin, and vocals, while remaining true to the original concept of finding the place where eastern and western sounds can mingle in lightly psychedelic, acoustic and electronic ambience. Whether you’re in the mood for droning background music or deep-listening experimental, you can find both in numün’s Opening.

(Centripetal Force Records, 2025)

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Gary Whitehouse

A fifth-generation Oregonian, Gary is a retired journalist and government communicator. Since the 1990s he has been covering music, books, food & drink and occasionally films, blogs and podcasts for Green Man Review. His main literary interests for GMR are science fiction, music lore, and food & cooking. A lifelong lover of music, his interests are wide ranging and include folk, folk rock, jazz, Americana, classic country, and roots based music from all over the world. He also enjoys dogs, birding, cooking, whisk(e)y, and coffee.

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