#jphono1

Tacoma Park is a long-time collaboration between John Harrison and Ben Felton, both veterans of North Carolina’s arts scene. Harrison records as Jphono1 and once drummed for the Comas. Felton presides over an interdisciplinary portfolio of music, arts education, video and visual arts. Their Tacoma Park project takes shape largely in their respective home studios, where they often work separately to edit and shape longer improvisations. “Paris,” for instance, started out as a 20-minute sonic odyssey; from this epic piece, the duo extracted an eight-minute core. It’s a stately, shimmering edifice, a chip off infinity which retains many of the properties of infinity itself.

Less grand and imposing, but nonetheless inviting, are tracks like “Coral” which pit arcs of distorted guitar against a backdrop of dewy naturalism. Or organ-led “Dawn” with its slow bloom of long-tones and subtle pulse of drums. These are lovely cuts, organic sounding but also not, situated somewhere in the uncanny valley between fingers-on-strings and electronic manipulation.

“Untied” is the highlight, leaning Teutonic with its play of synth melody and steady tonal drumming, but homing back in on North Carolina in its twanging pedal steel. Americana intersects with the Kosmiche in a far more natural way than you could fairly anticipate, both types of music, calm, gorgeous and transporting.