Gareth Davis & Monika Bugajny's Becoming is a single forty four minute track that begins quite patiently.  First becoming audible as a faint, filtered chordal drone after about a minute and a half, it swells slightly and ebbs away again.  

The tone is very clean and smooth, and I was debating in my head whether it was likely electronic or instrumental in origin.  I consulted the liner notes, and both musicians are credited with clarinets of various kinds.  So, what we have here is a clarinet long tones electronically modified with cleverly hidden loop points so as to become endless in length.  They are embellished with vast reverb, cascading smoothly and steadily across a massive space without the need for the players to ever take a breath.

Different notes fade gradually in and out so that the tonal makeup of the overall chord changes gradually.  There is a sympathetic emotional warmth to the artists' tonal choices.  Instrumentally sourced ambient music, it seems, lends itself to a sort of expressive romantic quality, evidenced by the work of groups like Stars of the Lid and Kyle Bobby Dunn, and now this duo.

There is very little information in the treble range; it has all been filtered away, while the bass has been boosted, or in some cases created by feedback loops in the delay and verb processing.  This leads to the feeling of a muted color palette, a nectarous soothing expanse of resonant bass.  

Any motion is a sort of sluggish morphing; there is never any abrupt activity.  Certainly, it is a minimal recording, but a thematically consistent and relaxing one, and very well produced at that, with present, rounded compression and an ear pleasing frequency curve.  It would make a perfect sleeping aid, a style of music I ultimately utilize the most frequently of all, although I am not always awake to actively perceive it.  This one can join my playlist alongside Mathias Grassow, Oophoi, or Alio Die's sparser works.

This is a lovely duet for clarinet and effects; an unhurried and soporific experience that is none-the-less inviting and strangely euphoric.  These are exemplary qualities for ambient music to sleep to.  I will likely be returning to this one many times.