Album Review: Undying Color by Mind Over Mirrors

Mind Over Mirrors is the droning, experimental electro-acoustic project of Jaime Fennelly, typically driven by synths and pedal harmonium. On 2015's The Voice Calling, Haley Fohr of Circuits Des Yeux brought her rich, sonorous baritone voice (and a little bit of scratchy guitar playing) to aid these psychedelic textures. Their newest album together, Undying Color, continues and expands their creative partnership, which here features Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day), Jim Becker (Califone) and Jon Mueller (Volcano Choir, Death Blues). The most noticeable sonic evolution on this new album is in the realm of rhythm, an unusual highlight for ambient or drone music.

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As Mind Over Mirrors, Jaime Fennelly (formerly of Peeesseye) uses analog synthesizers and an Indian pedal harmonium, creating swirling, pulsating drones equally informed by traditional ragas and cosmic electronic music. With 2017's Undying Color, he adds a generous helping of Americana to his list of influences. The album arrives on Paradise of Bachelors, a North Carolina-based label known for releasing music by progressive folk and country artists like Michael Chapman, Steve Gunn, and Hiss Golden Messenger, as well as Fennelly's former bandmate Chris Forsyth.

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A project begun on an island in Washington State, Mind Over Mirrors springs from the imagination of Jaime Fennelly, who now resides in Chicago. Across five limited edition releases, Fennelly has performed alone. And while Undying Color, his sixth album (and first for Paradise of Bachelors) also began as a solo excursion (this time with Fennelly decamping to southwestern Wisconsin), he then went back into the studio with a full-fledged ensemble, including members from Eleventh Dream Day, Califone, Circuit des Yeux and Jon Mueller of Death Blues, to add more color to his drones and drifts.

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