ith They Were Dreaming They Were Stones, Murmer samples everyday objects and sounds into a rhythmic collage. Unlike many other field recording artists—say, Afflux, who have also recorded for Ground Fault—Murmer is not particularly concerned with the context of the sounds he uses, but rather simply their innate quality as sounds. Throughout, he works these sounds into a droning, soupy mix that separates the sources from their origins.

Oddly enough then, the best moments on the disc come when these sources are more apparent. Murmer’s Patrick McGinley writes on the Ground Fault Records website that the track “Part One” was “inspired by the hypnotic rhythm of the ancient gas meter in [his] basement,” and he samples this meter as the backbone of the piece. Beyond the sonic component, however, McGinley’s statement seems to capture the very essence of this record’s numbing machine-like drive. The music has a rolling momentum that, instead of suggesting forward motion, hints at the enclosed circular motion of a wheel or an orbit, cogs clanking and grinding towards conclusion only to repeat the cycle once more, twice more, into time-blurring infinity. The gas meter connection is intimately present for every moment of these 11 minutes, with whining steam release occasionally layered over the regular chugging of the machine’s gears. This piece sounds like a factory, and the motion implied by the music gives it a very taut feeling of conflicting pressures; it’s the tension of the circular towards movement (spinning) on one hand and the stasis of constant return on the other.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the disc is not quite so successful. Parts two, three, and four of the album are sequenced together as a single 43-minute track, and after the initial quiet introduction of “Part Two,” the piece becomes largely tedious. The liner notes indicate what sounds are used on each part, making it possible to roughly distinguish them from one another, and the first section samples a marina and an elevator shaft.

The gentle wooden thumping of footsteps on the dock, the constant clanging of metal and bells, the gentle thrum of the water lapping against the pier; Murmer sequences these, with greater or lesser degrees of manipulation (it’s near-impossible to tell) into a rough-hewn symphony of natural sounds. It’s a far cry from the rumbling, electronic monolith of “Part One,” but there is a definite sense of a subtle shambling pulse here, which is what most of all suggests this piece as something other than an unaltered field recording. Following this, the music fades into “Part Three,” which samples a cell phone ringtone to predictably annoying effect. Here, McGinley’s sense of infusing his found sounds with a rhythm fails to achieve the same kind of resonance, and this lack of impact continues into the (by far the longest) final section. On this piece, the samples are numerous, but McGinley arranges them into an overbearing and mostly unchanging drone that hovers constantly and dully in the air, oppressive and lacking the multiple levels of details you’d expect from these field recordings. Instead, the top level of the drone is in the forefront, drowning out any nuance that might have been heard underneath.

Overall, They Were Dreaming They Were Stones is a somewhat disappointing installment in Ground Fault’s archives of Series I field recordings releases. With the exception of the beautifully realized ambiguity of “Part One”—a notable standout, to be sure—there is just nothing here that really reaches any deeper than a surface of interesting sounds. Music like this, to be interesting, should hit on emotional overtones found within the sounds recorded; Murmer, for too much of this release, simply dampens those emotions within his own production and assembly.