Bevel - "Phoenician Terrane"

Bevel - Low Income Glade (Contraphonic 2007)

Bevel – Phoenician Terrane / Contraphonic

One question seems to be repeatedly raised while I am reviewing albums, a musical chicken-or-egg conundrum. Is the music affecting my mood, or is my mood affecting how I perceive the music? It is eerie how often the album I just happened to be reviewing that day seems to match my current state of mind. For example, this morning the grey clouds are looming just outside my window, a chill wind is tumbling through the trees with unwarranted disgust, and my mind is full of sober thoughts on what appears to be the beginning of the much delayed fall season here in Chicago. And it just so happens that next in my review queue fits the mood to a tee, the latest album from Via Nuon’s Bevel moniker. Phoenician Terrane, Nuon’s first for Chicago-based Contraphonic Music, is a lulling, eerily looming psych-folk album that is very much appropriate for soundtracking a chilly, grey-skied morning of wandering thoughts and solemn moods, but certainly not because it is a monochromatic sound.

Via Nuon, a Chicago-via-Richmond, VA musician and composer, has been pursuing the possibilities of ethereal folk music for the last eight years as a solo artist. Also a member of Drunk and Manishevitz as well as being an oft-contributor for Edith Frost and Simon Joyner, Nuon’s Bevel alias has been gaining momentum with three well-received albums for Bloomington, IN’s psychedelic-whatever label Jagjaguwar. Releasing an album every two years since 2000, Bevel became an outlet for Nuon’s explorations into lush, haunting folk music, a contrast created between his penchant for blossoming instrumentals centered around a twangy guitar strum or a delicate piano melody and his ghostly vocals.

Phoenician Terrane does nothing to break this established tradition; Nuon crafting aching, fragile compositions and layering them with near-cinematic displays of lush instrumentation. Enlisting a talented array of auxiliary musicians to further develop the sound, including members of similarly sounding acts like Califone, Boxhead Ensemble and Manishevitz, the album is innately nostalgic, but for exactly what is uncertain. This longing feeling looms throughout, dragging its feet in a psychedelic haze, briefly following a warm tone here or a delicate melody there, but rarely finding a complete oasis in the solemn fog. Most importantly though, it is never suffocated in its emotional weight; the songs only occassionaly reach past the three-minute mark, and Nuon never milks a heartstring-plucking melody into melodramatic territory. Phoenician Terrane is more a display in compositional dexterity and honest emotional resonance that treads water somewhere between the sound pools of Califone, The Dirty Three and Magnetic Fields.

Maybe Nuon and his ensemble’s greatest achievement of the album is their altruistic approach to composing with the great amount of lush instrumentation involved. No singular tone or instrument ever completely takes the spotlight; instead they always seem to be lightly accentuating the songwriting. During “Balustrada” for example, the core of the song is a very simple chord progression on guitar and Nuon’s aching baritone, but continuously swirling around it are Karate-like electric guitar noodles, swelling analog synthesizers, vibraphone embellishments and distant echoing vocals. Or with the early highlight “Low Income Glade,” the focus is a very simple folk song, but the pirouetting, gypsy-like violin and flute lines along with the subtle synthesizer and guitar feedback lift the track into psychedelic levels.

The painting on the back cover of Phoenician Terrane pretty much sums up the album. There is just a speckle of red paint surrounding an array heavy, textured brush strokes of somber olive green. Though it is just a minute fleck, the red is the focus of your attention thanks to its chromatically opposite surroundings, no matter how textured and detailed the green paint may be. Though Nuon’s songwriting is rather simple, the musical atmosphere he has composed around it amplifies its resonance tenfold. I am not exactly sure whether the solemn music of Phoenician Terrane or the looming weather outside is setting my melancholy mood, the album shines brightly amidst its current grey-skied surroundings.