First Contact – Tobin Mueller (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

In the same way that the correct choice and brevity of words can act as an immediate scene-setter, so too can the right combination of musical notes. And as those first five notes open the song, the iconic motif from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you know exactly the theme we will be exploring here…if the title itself didn’t give you enough of a hint.

Pop culture seems to suggest that visitors from some far-flung galactic civilisation would be fans of glitchy electronica or heavy metal or that their chosen music would sound like the Moss Eisley cantina band or the players resemble something from a Rodney Matthews poster? These future folk might like nothing better after hard work than a relaxing cocktail (perhaps a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster) and some relaxing chilled jazz. Here, Tobin offers an alternative sound track.

But joking aside, there is an important discussion to be had regarding music as a first point of contact. If language has failings as a universal means of communication, then it is perhaps to the likes of maths and music, things built on absolutes, we should look for evidence of a common tongue, a universal lingua franca. After all, John Williams himself, composer of the aforementioned motif, said that for all its simplicity, it’s choice of arrangement would be recognised as a sophisticated creation, a marker of civilisation, rather than random noise.

And so, as always, there is a lot more at work in Tobin’s composition than we might first recognise. On one level, it is a cool piece of late-night jazz, relaxed and understated. On another, it combines many sounds and sonic ideas that have become associated with science fiction, from the ever-shifting Close Encounters motif that runs throughout to the riffing on Star Trek’s iconic soundtrack to more general sounds that conjure the off-world and otherworldly. And above all of that, it toys with the power of music as a beacon in a seemingly dead universe, a light in the dark to attract others to our existence.

Aside from the opening motif, Mueller rarely plays the same 5-note solfège intervals again. His carefully constructed melody is a floating evolution sprung from the original motif, balanced yet seemingly improvised. It glides around tonal centers, finds new dimensions to exist in, subtly shifting through undiscovered colors reflected within new contexts. The slowly morphing melody creates a voyage of thought, through time and space. Halfway through, when the Star Trek theme is hinted at, it takes off further, accelerating into an unexpected energized climax. When the 5-note variations return, there is a feeling of traveling through time, altered, as happens after a mindful trip.

First Contact proves that music is much more than it might first appear; at least, it is in the right hands. Amongst the gently cascading piano lines and the exquisite flugelhorns, the gentle beats and the poised bass pulses, there is all manner of existential questions being posed and ideas posited. Questions regarding our place in the universe, of music as a universal form of communication, of the Fermi paradox and the search for proof that we are not alone, of the power of mere sci-fi films to predict the future, of physics and philosophy, mathematics and melody. 

And you thought that you were listening to a chilled slice of jazz-infused loveliness. That’s not even the tip of the iceberg.