about the cd

Wisconsin musician Jon Mueller is inquisitive. Open to pushing his experience and his limits, he has demonstrated the many sides of himself both as a solo performer and as a key member in projects like Mind Over Mirrors, Volcano Choir, and Death Blues, or by running his shop of curiosities, Within Things. On Family Secret, Mueller maintains meticulous, sustained tension while re-engaging with a lighting technique he developed in college to alter his perception through changes in light and space.

This method, paired with reflections on family and divorce, led Mueller to almost hallucinatory states while writing and recording. Using gongs, drums, cymbals, and singing bowls, Mueller creates passages of airy, reverberated treble frequencies floating atop a bed of deep rumble. Gentle, metallic bellows fade in and shifting timbres immerse the listener, each wave of sound folding atop the previous, creating an enclosure.

The cover features a photo by Dutch photographer Niki Feijen, whose images of abandoned places evoke a timeless, clandestine sensation that mirrors Mueller’s probing process. Family Secret is surreptitiously enticing and intimate, from the short, sweet drone nugget “Ignited Hands” to the brooding closer “Welcome.” A house with room for one more—you’re already home.