Nearly two decades into his career as co-founder for the ensemble Balmorhea, Michael A. Muller deepens his compositional exploration with Mirror Music—his official debut full-length album for the esteemed Deutsche Grammophon label. Writing & producing from his Elyria Sound studio in LA, Muller’s work is wholly experiential; evading trope as a rule and existing in a space between the darkly occluded and the atmospherically spacious, with wide-reaching references from 1950s jazz to 19th century classical music to contemporary avant-garde and ambient realms. Mirror Music is a study in reflection. Formed by the inexplicable harmony of human connection and one’s impermanence in the wider scheme of self, existence and place; Mirror Music is at once holding out a magnifying glass while offering an open window to an ever-expanding cosmos. With each track, Muller’s compositions are expanded through collaboration with 11 different artists, including dark & sonorous vocals from Hania Rani, modular synthesized refractions from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, and lonesome desert timbres from Tortoise’s Douglas McCombs. Together, the pieces in Mirror Music form a cohesive movement through an assembly of two halves—a diptych of images braided into a single vision; holding a unified form whilst flashes of errant and haunting light refract through the proverbial glass. Images: Rich Stapleton