"If the waves were a little longer, the light/ Would be violet and visible and life/ Would be beautiful," Ben Lerner writes in "Mean Free Path". Color is Growing's métier, but it's also just a function of light, and since Growing focus on subtly graded shades, angles, and refractions (with the occasional bold primary for contrast), it's fair to say that each of their four LPs-- including Color Wheel-- has been a study in audibly rendering distinct qualities of light. The shimmering and rattle-flecked gloss of "Fancy Period" is the most evocative of an actual color wheel. Percussive bolts of static sputter across the channels, revolving like radial spokes; variegated color blurs around the hub, occasionally bursting into brightly drenched hues. Beyond that it's mostly effulgence, bending uncannily through the air.
The duo's effects-laden guitar meditations aren't timid, but they are soothing, even numbing, and womblike-- an aural amniotic fluid. Color Wheel doesn't stray far from Growing's signature sound: Idyllic drones struggle and periodically fail to contain outsized slabs of Tortoise-caliber distorted guitar that violently rupture the placid surfaces. Tracks like the brief "Cumulusless", where runnels of delayed guitar slalom around shrill bleats, flirt with surprisingly songlike dynamics, but for the most part, it's textbook Growing. "Friendly Confines" opens with washy layers of post-Eno ambiance, delayed guitars in a languid end-over-end freefall through a haze of fluttery pastels and deep browns; a low rumble gradually wells up into one of the massively distorted, major key anthem-fragments that pock the record like the Kool-Aid Man bursting through the sonic wallpaper. The novocaine overdose "Blue Angels" evokes a maximalist Keith Fullerton Whitman with its protracted and minutely graded hum.
Many musical trends emerge from concerns of style and innovation, but this sort of non-confrontational drone is a product of sheer exigency. Our world isn't geared toward serenity-- engines rumble, televisions blare, tinny music blasts from public speakers, people bray into cell phones. In this context, Growing seem less like musicians than monks or shamanistic healers, salving distressed ears with their salutary musical Zen. This music really occurs in the live setting, where you can see the audio-luminescence assembled piece by piece, and Color Wheel fairly captures that essence. So the record's main flaw is completely beyond the group's control-- committing something so immediate and spontaneous to tape always dims its aura, and Color Wheel has the potential to lose its luster with repetition. It's like mandala that's been glazed for preservation-- pretty, but sacrificing the deeper beauty of the ephemeral for permanence.
