Black Decelerant

The second installment in RVNG’s Reflections series shies away from the light, bending jazz and ambient echoes into a cavernous new album. It would seem hard to match the first installment, the luminous work from Steve Gunn and David Moore, but Khari Lucas (Contour) and Omari Jazz ably rise to the task. The album hangs in the ether, a reflection on non-being, matters of existence, manners of existence, and blackness in America. The album is rooted in jazz, but unfurls the genre into loose spools of sound that bounce between suspended mirrors in the headspace. The echoes play at reflections of intentions — a mask that slips, tensions that build like steam, then dissipate into the surrounding atmosphere.

Quite a few songs feel like the pressure might burst, but instead it’s ushered to escape, unwind, fold into the cosmos in ways that seek sanctity and sanctuary. Lucas and Jazz envisioned the album as a map to a more mindful life — a rebuttal to the outer itch of existence, of capital, of culture, commodity, and corrosion. It’s a conduit of calm and an advocate for slowing the encroachment of outside forces. In the end it becomes a barrier for the soul.