Austin – In the endless debate over the true purpose of art, I have encountered two opposing schools of thought. Vaguely put, the first revere’s art as sacred and inimitable. Hence the existence of museums. The second aims to make art user-defined and accessible in every way. Art can either be contained, or it can be manipulated and recreated. In Gap Dream’s new album Shine Your Light, front man Gabriel Fulvimar seems to take shelter from the ever-changing pallets and opinions of listeners by restricting his creativity to whatever will fit safely in a display box. While living and recording in his label’s office, Fulvimar adopted the art-as-sacred mindset and created an album that is difficult to connect with in this day and age. It is easy to pick up on the album’s inspirations, but impossible to find a place for it in the attention of today’s audience. Though it has its inventive moments, the album is largely characterized by unremarkable lyrics, dull vocals, and repressive song structures.
The keyboard, however, gives this album a life force. The most vivid moments are found in these unabashedly sugary riffs and provide a nice multi-colored escape from the gray guitars and vocals that characterize most of the remainder of the album. In the title track, a triumphant and melodious synthesizer grants you freedom from the exile of its dimly lit predecessor, “There’s Blood on the Stone”.
But the album remains alienating, a deficiency that can be attributed in part to the fact that all the different components often fail to cooperate with one another. Melodic and instrumental variability is what allows a song to tell a story, but the result is only cohesive as long as the different parts follow a corresponding structural trajectory. In Shine Your Light, all these styles are going on within each song, but are awkward and out of place because they are never individually heard and are contained in a repetitive structure. In “Chill Place”, what could be a mesmerizing shoegaze-esque digression is halted by the incoming chorus and not given enough time to resonate with and be visualized by listeners.
“Snow Your Mind”, however, proves to be the one exception to this claim. This hazy dreamscape of a song showcases one instrument at a time, thus shedding light on the more impressive elements of the song that stand strongly on their own. Allowing the inquisitive guitar to paint the song, we get a glimpse into the ambient quality of Gap Dreams’ music. Proving less is more; this song reveals a more thoughtful and intentional facet of Fulvimar’s writing.
In spite of its reverence for record store classics, Shine Your Light lacks contemporary elements to forge connections with modern listeners. But not all art strives for this. Things that seem careless can also be interpreted as deliberately innocent. For instance, the limerick-styled “Love is Not Allowed” initially seems trite and almost reprehensible in its predictability. I mean, you couldn’t make a more predictable song if you tried. But what if he actually did try?
It is possible that Shine Your Light is more deliberate than meets the eye. Though the songs don’t provide much of an escape from reality, they accompany reality by reflecting its imperfections in a non-threatening way. The songs may not challenge or excite you, but they will make you more acutely aware of the things in music that actually do.
Ruth Griffin
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