According to the Spotted Peccary one-sheet accompanying this release, Denver, Colorado based musician Jesse Sola, the creative force behind Numina, has twenty releases to his credit (and that's since 2000), and 'The Chroma Plateau' is his first on the Spotted Peccary label. I haven't heard any of them, but that's fairly typical for me. The music of Numina is what you'd call "space ambient," being rich with atmosphere and thin on melodic content which is fine by me. In fact, I'd rather not have my space ambient sullied with any melodic content, but it's hard not to have some filter through on many artists' releases in this genre, and there is a smattering of it here on 'The Chroma Plateau,' but it's abstract and sparse enough not to be much of a bother. Too much melodic content and things get "New Agey," in my opinion. (It's what I call the Hearts of Space Syndrome.) A really good thing about Numina's sonic loops and drones is that they're treated to sound huge and vast, a hallmark of most good space music. One track that does use melodic sequencing, "Intergalactic Traveller," is at least hypnotic, minimal and brief enough to keep the starship on course. There are plenty of mysterious ambiences on this album to make you feel like you may be exploring some uncharted territory, although the sounds may be fairly familiar to the well-traveled space-ambient cosmonaut. Numina employs a varied and well-integrated sound palette and even occasionally skirts dark ambient territory, as on "Living in the Clouds" with an ominous undercurrent of foreboding. Perhaps the most curious track though is the title track which reminds me a bit of Pauline Anna Strom's Trans Millenia Consort. It may lack the wild oscillations Strom is known for, but has certain other fine elements I recall on a couple of her albums. If you're an aficionado of space ambient music, you'd do well to check out this release. It's one I will surely keep on my playlist.