Derived from Retinas

Recorded at Chicago's Jamdek Studio in the summer of 2018, what Mute Duo wrests from the somewhat unconventional instrumentation on Lapse in Passage is stunning. It's like David Lynch baked in the Texas heat. It's the soundtrack to a Cormac McCarthy-inspired fever dream. On "Derived From Retinas", the music begins slowly and deliberately, with sparse percussion pairing well with Wagster's pedal steel runs. A light drone is heard underneath, and the insistent, unsettling rattling of piano notes move in and out. The song works well as an introduction to Mute Duo's sound – dark, brooding, deliberate, adventurous. -- Chris Ingalls