As Halloween becomes a distant memory with decorative purple and orange lights making way for a merrier hues of multi-coloured twinkles or a warm white glow, temptation is to reach for something sonic to suit the upcoming season of merriment. Some choose to head down the path trodden into obsidian by listening to the same 30 tracks on Now That’s What I Call Christmas!, others bring out alternative and more classical moments to hearken back to times more nostalgic.
Not for me. The vaguest hint of a lengthening shadow or a snowflake on a 7-day forecast and out comes the all cocooning ambience. One album that found itself absolutely integral to this personal indulgence – and to any situation where a moment of disassociation was necessary – is Bibio’s ‘Phantom Brickworks‘.
Unfamiliar sonic territory compared to his established catalogue, the album that Stephen James Wilkinson created was engrossing from the off. As someone who hadn’t really dipped into the world of Bibio before, within a few moments it was apparent that it felt significant, like it carried an aura. Needless to say, the announcement some weeks ago that a sequel was due to arrive hit this individual with utmost gravity.
Much like the previous album, Bibio provides a soundtrack for a forgotten Britain. Despite the isles being relatively compact, there are little pockets of forgotten architecture and abandoned infrastructure, once pivotal linchpins of the community that fell between the cracks, existing in the peripheral vision between urban sprawl and new build housing estates.
‘Spider Bridge’ tells the tale of an old footbridge in Kirkintilloch that ran from the Old Works construction site and the railway station, where only a fragment remains after its decommission in 1939, restored as a pat on the back for a job well done. Then two representations compliment: ‘Dinorwic’ is an abandoned Welsh quarry flanked by the glacial lake of ‘Llyn Peris’, the slightly reclaimed steps of man-made landscape carvery sat against the artistry of nature’s erosion. While ‘Brograve’ pivots to the Norfolk coast, detailing a brick drainage mill dating back to the 1700’s, dilapidated but defiant.
These industrial ghost stories fascinate on a personal level as someone who often takes a shortcut through the expanse of Hartshead Power Station, whose coal conveyor belt rises out of the woodland vale of Millbrook like a fossilised dinosaur, mostly disregarded on a mundane daily basis as cars thunder between Manchester and Huddersfield. These relics from the not-too-distant past are captivating, not quite fossilised, not quite alive. Some of the appeal possibly comes from an attachment to a structure that lived its life in a time unbothered by concepts such as the internet and social media.
Capturing this sonically is central to ‘Phantom Brickworks (LP II)‘ and this is where Bibio taps into all his folky acumen. Painting the canvas are pianos that sound like they’re sourced from the corner of a sleepy village hall, a siren’s song that sings somewhere in the mist, lost conversations frozen in time, and melodies that sit somewhere between the peal of church bells or the rhythmic tap of melting icicles.
The music loops, locking with your thoughts, carrying a mixture of conflicting emotions: sadness, loss, nostalgia, hope. There is an added element of bleakness with this collection when compared to its predecessor, perhaps a reflection of tumultuous years prior. However bleakness does not mean the absence of beauty, and Phantom Brickworks (LP II) always carries itself with poise and grace.
To celebrate the release of Phantom Brickworks (LP II), Tom Durston took the opportunity to interview Bibio in an attempt to unearth the haunting soundscapes and mindset of the project.
Interview by Tom Durston
"I often envision landscapes and places, so it makes a suitable soundtrack for exploring certain environments, whether that’s in real life or just in my head. If I can conjure up different emotions with music with potency, then I feel like I’ve achieved something."
Hello Stephen, thank you for taking the time to speak. Over the past 15 years of running Inverted Audio your music has become a close companion to me and I have been eager to interview you for quite some time! Personal highlights include Ambivalence Avenue, The Green EP, Mind Bokeh and of course Phantom Brickworks. We’re here to talk about your long-awaited follow up Phantom Brickworks (LP II). How do you feel about finally unleashing this album to the world?
It always feels good to release an album, it’s the point of no return, it’s drawing a line under it. When an album goes public it can be nerve racking as this thing that you’ve been precious about up until now has been private, and now it’s out in the open – it’s a bit like coming out of hibernation.
The period leading up to and around releasing an album is the most stressful part, it’s where most of the emailing and admin stuff kicks in, and having to keep on top of conversations with lots of different people at the label etc. It takes up a lot of time and headspace – I’m no longer in my own world during those times, but I’m not complaining, I’m still living my dream and it’s a necessary part of the process if I want my music to be heard, which I most definitely do.
I feel good knowing that people are going to get to hear what I’ve been working on, allowing people to explore my world a bit. The music made by other people has made my life rich and interesting, so I like to think I can contribute something of that nature myself.
At the time of writing, Autumn is in full effect in the UK (if not slightly over). It is of course no coincidence that Phantom Brickworks is being released during the fall – it provides an idyllic soundscape for wandering through the fallen canopy of leaves speckled across the floor. Are all of your productions inherently seasonal?
I definitely get inspired differently when autumn comes, but my music making happens continuously. All of the seasons inspire me, during the dark months there’s an excitement and longing for spring as well as taking the time to admire the beauty in bleakness, then when spring arrives I want to capture that and include it in my art. The same goes for darker seasons too, which are inherently melancholy. Autumn certainly feels like a good time to release Phantom Brickworks (LP II), but it can be made at any time.
Phantom Brickworks is a hauntingly textural ambient project that navigates a plethora of emotions – the music is fragile, melancholic and ultimately quite sad. What do you feel and envision when producing and listening back to Phantom Brickworks?
I often envision landscapes and places, so it makes a suitable soundtrack for exploring certain environments, whether that’s in real life or just in my head. If I can conjure up different emotions with music with potency, then I feel like I’ve achieved something.
Emotions are such strange and complex things, and melody/harmony is a language of emotion. We often reduce emotions to primary colours when talking about life, but music can awaken all sorts of complex and nuanced emotions that are indescribably, and that’s a really strange thing for the human being to have evolved with, it’s like our brains tap into some deep and mysterious feature of the universe through music, and although we might think of music as a human invention, it’s more like a discovery.
We didn’t get to choose that a sad chord sounds sad, but as musicians we can choose which emotional colours to paint with. In some ways it feels like music is the most detailed description of emotion we have.
"I choose an instrument/sound, then I experiment with playing some notes into a delay pedal until a pattern emerges, I listen to it and respond to it by overlaying and filling in the gaps, allowing it to develop and become more complex."
How do you think the second album compares to the first?
Comparing my albums isn’t something I really do, it’d be like comparing chapters of my life – they are what they are, they’re all dear to me and represent growth.
Tell me about your approach for getting into the mindset for writing music for Phantom Brickworks?
I can’t really explain why I get an urge to do a certain thing, sometimes it didn’t start out as an urge at all. Sometimes I want a break from meticulous composing and arranging and songwriting (which requires more brain power) and to just jam and have an ongoing conversation with myself via a delay/loop pedal.
It’s more of a meditative approach; I choose an instrument/sound, then I experiment with playing some notes into a delay pedal until a pattern emerges, I listen to it and respond to it by overlaying and filling in the gaps, allowing it to develop and become more complex. It’s by no means a method that I invented, but I have developed a certain style in doing it, and that wasn’t really planned.
I use a couple of very specific 1980s digital delay pedals, which have really interesting characteristics in that when a loop is set to repeat for a long time, rather than simply fade away, it gets more crumbly, fuzzy, murky.
I find those kinds of regeneration artefacts really alluring – like a copy of a copy of a copy and so on, these pedals kind of do that, but very gradually. Those artefacts contribute to the melancholy nature, in a similar way to how an abandoned house that’s overrun with ivy and brambles is melancholy – it’s beautiful decay – and of course that is the way autumn is often perceived.
Talk me through the gear you use for making this album and your track selection process? (cassette, reel to reel, old samplers and vintage FX pedals)
The pedals are secret, but I’m also using an antique upright piano (which I’ve been using for over 25 years). My girlfriend’s parents liberated it from a school when she was a child so she had something to practice on. I met her in 1996 and they had the piano at their house, I started to use it early on in my recordings. So it’s the same piano on Hand Cranked’s “Above The Rooftops” (although that was the piano sampled note-for-note on an AKAI S3000XL and midi sequenced).
It’s the same piano on Lovers’ Carvings… it’s moved house with me twice already and will move with me again next year when I move to Wales. The paint was stripped, so I can’t see a maker’s name, but my piano tuner guessed it to be 1920s-1930s, it’s British made. It’s not a fancy piano and the action is quite heavy, but it has sentimental value now and I think of it as part of the core sound of Phantom Brickworks.
I also used a Gibson Les Paul Studio baritone guitar through a volume pedal and a Strymon blueSky reverb for some of the droney tracks, again looped on the same vintage digital delays. DINORWIC, LLYN PERIS and previously CAPEL CELYN are the same guitar and pedals. A lot of the grain and texture comes from the pedals, although I do record to analogue tape also. Sometimes straight to tape – mostly reel-to-reel but sometimes cassette, other times I record to a computer and then transfer to tape afterwards.
For Phantom Brickworks I’ve used an AKAI 1710W, Sony TC-377, Nagra III, Nagra IV-S and also run stuff through tape echoes. I also used some samples on this album, DOROTHEA’S BED is built around a Vashti Bunyan acapella, which I added a Minimoog bass line to and some Mellotron (I think).
SYCHDER MCMLXXXIX was made by feeding my computer’s main output to a volume pedal and a couple of digital delay pedals and randomly grabbing snippets of audio off YouTube to form overlapping patterns, I have no idea what I sampled for that track, I was just going down rabbit holes of all sorts of stuff from cheesy Chinese bamboo flute music to old documentaries and obscure films, I made a whole album of these experiments in 2 days, but a couple of tracks made it to the album – the other is BROGRAVE.
"I feel more at ease in the countryside, closer to my true self, less distracted, less on edge - certain emotions emerge when I go to Wales that feel like they’ve been dormant or oppressed when I’m not there."
Phantom Brickworks is a combination of lo-fi loops and folk instrumentation that melds medieval with modern frequencies. For me, “TEGID’S COURT” is the pinnacle of the album, marrying acoustic instrumentation with vocals, birdsong and electronic synths that envelopes listeners in your signature warmth. The synth in particular is the standout component tying the track together. For you, what is the biggest leap in your composition and production on this album?
The synth is actually a baritone guitar, I very rarely use synths for Phantom Brickworks, I find droney reverbed guitar to be more organic and rich than synth pads, more haunting. Apart from the bass line in DOROTHEA’S BED, I don’t think I used any synths. I don’t think there are any big leaps to be honest, it was always intended to be a continuation of the first album, to not stray too far away from that palette of sounds and techniques.
The harp on TEGID’S COURT is actually a digitally modelled one (so you could count that as a synth), I was experimenting with the same technique I use with real piano but with a different sound. When I get a bigger studio I plan to buy a real harp and make some improvised loop-based music with that, I’m very excited about that.
You have long avoided live sets and performances, why is this? Do you plan to perform at any point in the near future?
No plans. I simply don’t like performing, I don’t like being watched by a crowd, it feels so unnatural to me. I do appreciate that people want to see me perform live, but it’s not in my nature to do so and that feels more apparent the older I get. I’m not particularly interested in live music myself, although I do enjoy live jazz. But I don’t go to concerts, unless it’s something really special – like when I saw Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint being performed at the Barbican in London, that was very moving.
I also have tinnitus, so I don’t like being exposed to really loud music anymore and I don’t want to make my tinnitus worse, working as a music producer for a living with tinnitus is already worrying enough. I loved going to metal gigs as a teen, but the idea of being in a hot sweaty crowded room has no appeal to me now.
Also touring is just bad for your health, it’s easier when you’re in your 20s and 30s, but it often involves little sleep, stress, anxiety and a bad diet… and booze. I have done the odd gig sober, but I always enjoyed it more with alcohol, as it eases you up, and that’s a slippery slope if you are doing that regularly.
There have been some talented young artists go off the rails because of touring and it’s ended up affecting their output as producers in a negative way, I think shy solo artists are maybe more vulnerable to this too. I’ve heard stories about famous rock bands who pack up after a show and go soberly on to the next destination like professionals, now it’s DJs who are getting fucked up and trashing their dressing rooms.
I imagine that you tend to avoid urban environments for rural retreats. How do you navigate your relationship with urban and rural environments and what sounds and feelings do you associate with these environments?
I’ve grown to dislike urbanity more and more with age, certainly in the UK, although there are obviously more troubled places on earth. I always enjoyed Tokyo as a visitor but I don’t know how long I could cope with the intensity and noise. I feel more at ease in the countryside, closer to my true self, less distracted, less on edge – certain emotions emerge when I go to Wales that feel like they’ve been dormant or oppressed when I’m not there.
For years now I’ve been avoiding cities and trying to get more into the countryside, I’m moving to rural Wales soon and that will be a whole new chapter. Right now I feel like I’d be happy with never going to London again, but it’s kind of unavoidable. Maybe I’ll change my mind if Wales chills me out more, but it might do the opposite – leaving the tranquility of a Welsh valley and into the bustle of the capital might induce a panic attack haha.
I seem to be a country person even though I’m from an industrial part of the UK – the West Midlands, it’s a sprawling conurbation that includes Birmingham and the various towns of the Black Country, I also did a 4 year stint in London where I studied at University.
I was introduced to the beauty of the Welsh countryside as a little kid and later as a teen, and found myself longing for it ever since, nowhere else has ever had the same effect on me (apart from Scotland maybe). Although I’ve been to other wonderful and beautiful places, Wales (particularly Eryri/Snowdonia national park) just does something to me, I love green mossy valleys, mountains and forests, damp places with an abundance of streams and waterfalls.
The most inspired I’ve ever felt from a place was going to Cwm Einion (Artists’ Valley) in Wales when I was around 18 years old. I found out recently it is classed as a temperate rainforest, which is very rare. Robert Plant used to own a good chunk of Cwm Einion, and he apparently described it as “an undistorted mirror”, I swear that the first time I went there, there were sheep with “RP” sprayed on their fleeces.
If ever I meet Robert Plant (he’s from the West Midlands), I’ll ask him about that. I shot some of the “Dye The Water Green” video at Cwm Einion on a “Marty McFly” JVC camcorder, and I shot the “Ode To A Nuthatch” video from the Ribbons sessions there, I remember trying to keep a straight face while my head was being bitten by midges.
"My take on nostalgia is that it has to be a modern or current perspective, it is looking to the past, but because of the arrow of time and the impossibility of going backward - that makes it so powerful. The past becomes like a dream, impressionistic, sometimes rose-tinted, sometimes murky green and cold, but it can be very haunting - distant memories can feel like a portal that’s closing."
Yearning back to past times through your music indicates a longing sense for nostalgia, is it convenient for you to forge music in this way and why do you choose to explore this as a framework for your music?
I’m drawn towards things that make me feel something powerful. When I was discovering the magic of music as a child I wasn’t just a passive listener, I became fascinated with melody and harmony from playing on a Bontempi organ.
When I first heard Für Elise in a film, I didn’t know why it sounded sad, I didn’t know if it made other people feel sad and I was too embarrassed to ask, but the fact it sounded sad got me hooked. Following that, I learned the difference between major and minor and was more drawn to minor, not because I was a sad child (I was a happy child) but I was curious, and I seemed to be very sensitive to aesthetics and atmosphere, although I didn’t think I was at the time.
The fact that 3 keys on a keyboard played together could make me feel sad was, I think, one of the reasons I got so into music, it just felt like magic. Then obviously that evolved and the emotions I learned to evoke with harmony (and textures) became more nuanced. Nostalgia was part of that progression.
My take on nostalgia is that it has to be a modern or current perspective, it is looking to the past, but because of the arrow of time and the impossibility of going backward – that makes it so powerful. The past becomes like a dream, impressionistic, sometimes rose-tinted, sometimes murky green and cold, but it can be very haunting – distant memories can feel like a portal that’s closing.
Nostalgia is not about recreating something from the past, that’s revival, nostalgia is an emotional reaction to something that only exists as memories, and memories are internal and incomplete and without substance. Music can induce nostalgia and if it’s done in a careful way – it can feel like something new, so I’ll defend nostalgia when it’s accused of living in the past or not looking forward, I think that’s a fairly naive angle on it. There are artists who have defined new modern eras whose music is steeped in nostalgia, and it felt more like a lookout point from the time it was released rather than trying to turn the clocks back.
As a project, do you feel that Phantom Brickworks has become the pinnacle project for Bibio?
Not at all, it’s just a side to me as an artist. I do find myself listening to it a lot, but then I’m listening more and more to ambient music now. But then it seems ambient music is becoming more popular in general, I think it can serve as an antidote to the frantic and fragmented world of digital media and the bombardment of information.
Phantom Brickworks is not meant as spa music, for me it’s less background music than pop music, it’s something to pay attention to, every single note that’s being added to a piano loop one by one and hearing it evolve, that’s how I prefer to listen to it.
A few people have told me it’s great to work or study to, and that’s also great, if it can be enjoyed in different ways I’m cool with that. I’ve been discovering Sarah Davachi’s music recently and it’s really not background music for me, I feel like I need to stop what I’m doing and pay attention for it to really come alive. In some cases I’ve drifted off, but the moments before sleep and during waking up seem to enhance it, they’re like brief windows of having a clearer mind, even if you missed a chunk of the music during sleep.
I am from the East Midlands and I love exploring the rolling fields, forests and reservoirs of Rutland and Leicestershire. During lockdown I made an effort to explore The Great Northern Railway consisting of abandoned Victorian bridges, coal sheds, water towers and The Welland Viaduct (still in operation). It amazes me how much attention to detail and structural longitude has been invested into these structures, especially as they were built so quickly. Locations in Wales form the bedrock of the Phantom Brickworks project, tell us about these locations (Capel Celyn, Capel Bethania, Pantglas, Llyn Peris) and how you first discovered them and what drew you to investigate and document these places?
The idea of referencing places was to give the listener something to discover or explore. I love that a piece of music and a title (as a pointer) can be a powerful combination, so I generally don’t want to give too much away with the references.
Some of them have already been discussed, the most discussed being Capel Celyn, which was a village in the Tryweryn valley in north Wales that was flooded in 1965 to build a reservoir to supply Liverpool with water. The welsh-speaking community who lived there was forced to leave, the village was demolished and a huge part of the valley was flooded.
Despite strong opposition and protest, it went ahead. It was highly controversial and remains a painful memory to this day, a famous piece of graffiti reading “Cofiwch Dryweryn” which translates to “Remember Tryweryn” in English, was painted on a stone wall in Ceredigion and has been vandalised and preserved several times over the years, it has become a symbolic monument to many Welsh people.
The story moved me, and the track I eventually called Capel Celyn sounded vast, submerged and poignant, so it felt like a fitting title, and I guess I wanted more people to know the story. There’s an explanation for Capel Bethania on the Phantom Brickworks Wikipedia page, but it’s not the Capel Bethania I referenced. 9:13, Pantglas and Capel Bethania are all linked to one story. There are also clues buried in the Ivy Charcoal video.
"I crave silence more than ever, or the ability to just hear nature. That’s a big part of what the move to Wales is about, I’m getting more sensitive to noise pollution it seems."
You previously stated that Phantom Brickworks has become a longtime project of yours, which started in 2002 whilst you were at University conducting Sonic Arts experiments. Have any of these recordings worked themselves into the Phantom Brickworks project?
Phantom Brickworks really started around 2006/2007, but the looping technique and the pedal I used goes back to 1998/1999, but I started to use it with piano later on. There was a Supercollider 2 experiment I recorded when I was at University, it used a short sample of a helicopter that was hovering above my house in London one night, I recorded it on MiniDisc and wrote a patch in Supercollider 2 that took a short sample of it and played it back at different speeds, feeding it through overlapping resonant filters and the reverb was also written in the code, there was some degree of control over the parameters by moving the mouse pointer around the screen, but it was mostly automated with some degree of randomness written in the code. Years later I added some of this chopped helicopter piece to the end of Capel Celyn.
Casting back through your YouTube channel I stumbled across a video from 2013 named “Dowt the light” with a description saying “Skeletons of what used to be industry. Crumbling empty shells pass me by on the train from the Black Country to Birmingham, England.” I can imagine this marked the birth of Phantom Brickworks.
That was around the time I was making the first Phantom Brickworks tracks. “Dowt the light” was something my mom used to say when I was younger, reminding me to turn off (or “dowt”) the lights before I went to bed. I never questioned the word at the time, but I looked it up in a very old dictionary years ago and the word “dowt” was in there, which meant to put-out a light or flame. I think it might be a contraction of “do-out”.
That train journey is full of derelict buildings, me and a few friends used to explore derelict factories down the canal in our mid teens, it always felt like an adventure because they were pretty dangerous places, partly because of the unsafe state of the buildings but also some of the dodgy people you’d sometimes encounter in them – I remember one place was full of barrels of toxic chemicals and these little gas canisters that we would let off and they’d fly around the building.
A few years later I remember making simple a lo-fi guitar track with an analogue delay pedal and cassette and it somehow reminded of those derelict factories, so I guess it was in me for a long time as a source of inspiration.
Your music has a meditative quality and offers an opportunity to relieve the stresses of contemporary life. Is this something you consciously channel into your productions?
I probably channel it more subconsciously, I try to make what I want to hear myself, and I guess I need relief from reality too haha.
How have your home listening habits altered over the past five years?
Not much has changed, I probably listen to my own work-in-progress more than anything else, but aside from that I definitely listen to more mellow music now. Not just ambient, but jazz ballads too.
Occasionally I feel more upbeat and want to listen to some funk or hard bop or house, but not a lot of electronic music now. I’ve also been having more times without music, which I think is important. I’m not one of these people who has to have music playing all the time, I don’t relate to those people who just have the radio on. I’ve never been a radio listener, I have on a couple of occasions discovered something good that was on the radio, but it was probably because someone else was listening to the radio at the time.
I prefer to choose what I want to listen to and only if I’m in the mood, rather than it being a habit. Like some people have to have the TV on as some kind of comfort thing. I crave silence more than ever, or the ability to just hear nature. That’s a big part of what the move to Wales is about, I’m getting more sensitive to noise pollution it seems.
"Improvised stuff is always the quickest, I could make a load of Phantom Brickworks type tracks in a day, but to make a Phantom Brickworks album is more like photography - you go out and shoot a roll of film and there might be one really good photo if you’re lucky. So it takes time to build up a collection of those special takes to make an album."
Have you lived anywhere else in the world? If not, where would you like to live and create music from?
I’ve only lived in the West Midlands and London. I’ve wanted to live in Wales for more than half of my life, second to Wales would probably be Scotland, but if I was to consider moving outside the UK it might be Ireland, rural France or Italy. Somewhere green with hills but with history.
Iceland is great but I love ancient woodland too much, but I really respect the culture of Iceland and how incredibly creative and productive they are considering the small population. The landscape is incredible, and I really want to visit again, but I think it’s possibly too bleak for what I crave.
I love Japan, but I can’t deal with heat, and the giant hornets are too scary haha, although I should check out Hokkaido as it’s not as hot. I have no interest in dry desert countries as somewhere to live, and I have little interest in flat places. I’d certainly like to visit such places to experience them and take photographs, but I’d probably want to move on until I’m in the trees again, and somewhere where it rains often.
I’ve not explored the USA, but New England, Oregon, Washington State are all appealing… partly because I’m a Twin Peaks fan. I’m far more interested in small town America than New York City or Los Angeles. Canada is appealing, British Columbia looks overwhelmingly beautiful. I can imagine I’ll stay in Wales, but I’ll just follow my instincts, but I can’t imagine ever leaving Europe.
I’m intrigued to find out what music you listen to at home and which artists and record labels are currently exciting you the most? I’d love to share some of my favourites from the past year with you: Anenon, Ben Kaczor, Bethany Misselbrook, cv313, Dialect, Earthen Sea, Enmossed, Fennesz, Jabu, Jack J, Jake Muir, John Roberts, mu tate, Peak Oil, Purelink, Rue Des Garderies, Tarik Hensen, Vaagner, øjeRum, Florian TM Zeisig.
Currently lots of jazz: Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Joe Pass, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Paul Desmond, Stephane Grappelli, Django Reinhardt, Bill Evans, Oliver Nelson.
Ambient/mellow stuff: Oskar Gudjonsson, Skuli Sverrisson, Gustaf Ljunggren, Sarah Davachi, Susumu Yokota… I’ll also add Vashti Bunyan’s “Just Another Diamond Day” to ambient as it’s one of the most soothing albums for me, it’s like disappearing into a pre-industrial pastoral painting.
Tell me about your workflow for creating music? Are you quick to arrange compositions? Do you produce a large quantity, then trim down to fit the concept?
Sometimes a track takes months, sometimes I make an album in 2 days. Improvised stuff is always the quickest, I could make a load of Phantom Brickworks type tracks in a day, but to make a Phantom Brickworks album is more like photography – you go out and shoot a roll of film and there might be one really good photo if you’re lucky. So it takes time to build up a collection of those special takes to make an album.
Technically I have enough tracks already to release another five Phantom Brickworks albums, but I’m very selective. So to answer your other question about quantity – yes, I’ve produced a lot and continue to do so, and I’m very selective about the tracks I decide to finish or put on an album.
Sometimes I rediscover an old unfinished track 5 years after I made it and suddenly feel inspired to finish it, that’s happened quite a few times. I value my archives, even though most of it will never be heard. They can all technically be thought of as works in progress, but at the very least – they’re all practice.
The pandemic must have enabled you to invest more time into exploring places and working on music – was that period a fruitful time for making music?
The pandemic wasn’t that life changing for me in terms of productivity, socialising obviously took a hit. I remember spending hours most nights chatting to drummer Ian Hendry on WhatsApp until sunrise, he played on BIB10. We’d stay up really late sharing “yer dah” jokes and I’d play him music I was working on.
That’s one of the things I remember well about the pandemic. Most of it was a blur, but I somehow made an album during some of it. I don’t think about it much now to be honest. It definitely made more of a mark on other people I know.
"I’m not a perfectionist and don’t strive to be. I might work on a piece for a long time until I’m satisfied with it, but I don’t ever think it’s perfect. In fact the lack of perfection often makes music more charming."
Now, there appears to be more of an unspoken demand for ambient electronic music – as people wean themselves back from isolated living and struggle to relate in the club. Do you also agree? Is this album something of a statement in that regard?
I agree that there seems to be more of a demand for ambient music, I always assumed it was partly because people needed some relief from all of the chaos that is modern internet-based culture, but also the newer form of listening to music – playlists. Playlists are the new radio it seems, people want music on while they work and ambient music fits that well.
Music Videos have long had an important place for me – yours are vivid and organically beautiful. Smoke and red beaming lights are often used in your videos and photography – what is the significance of these elements?
The red light in the Phantom Brickworks/Capel Celyn video was a reference to the Ambivalence Avenue artwork. The red door in Ambivalence Avenue was just something I dreamed up. So like with revisiting the line “All The Flowers” across various albums – the red light continues.
It’s a bit like John Stanier’s high cymbal… it’s too late to stop now. But the red light in that video took on a sinister look, like blood, and that also felt relevant to that particular place, Dinorwic quarry, as those quarrymen were borderline slaves and some lost limbs and lives in those Welsh slate quarries for little pay, usually to line the pockets of some rich family.
You’re an avid user of Leica cameras, tell me more about your passion for photography and how you use this medium to capture snapshot moments of time to visualise your art?
There are beautiful/interesting scenes everywhere, and it’s a skill to observe them and capture them. Like any skill, photography can be developed and honed. Even though taking a photo can be as easy as pointing a camera and pressing a button, there are people who are just simply incredible at it.
I love and respect many types of photography, but I’m personally most interested in the least contrived form of photography – observing a scene in real life and taking a photo of it (as opposed to studio photography, which I also respect BTW). It can sharpen your observation and appreciation of everything around you, town or country, sunny or gloomy, colourful or grey, it doesn’t really matter. I think there’s potential anywhere.
Good photographers to me are the ones who notice something others don’t, and even though I love certain types of photography gear, that’s not the most important part. Stick any camera in the hands of a truly talented photographer and you’ll get something interesting. And just like with music, I like a wide variety of qualities. So although I’m predominantly a film shooter, some of my favourite photographers I know shoot digital.
My favourite two cameras currently are the Leica MP and the Mamiya 7ii. I’ve been leaning more towards the Leica for dreamier shots using lenses that bloom/glow when they’re wide open, whereas the Mamiya is about clean and sharp, but still with the gorgeous film tones and colours.
Going for a walk with a camera and treating it as an opportunity to “hunt” for images feels very wholesome, poetic even. It’s deliberately noticing. It’s not about anxiously wanting to cling onto moments by recording them, it’s about framing selected instances from the infinite variety, and if you really get into it, your personality can come through in the work, just like it can with having a musical signature.
Over the years of making music, do you feel that you have perfected your approach or are there a lot more textures, atmospheres, textures and emotions that you’d like to explore further?
I’m not a perfectionist and don’t strive to be. I might work on a piece for a long time until I’m satisfied with it, but I don’t ever think it’s perfect. In fact the lack of perfection often makes music more charming.
What drives you to continue to create music?
A combination of push and pull. The pull is like the positive force – a genuine curiosity and enthusiasm to explore and create. And the push is more of a negative force – when I have periods of being less productive I feel less content or satisfied, not necessarily out of guilt, but like there’s always a need to do something creative. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’ve been very prolific and it’s ok to chill, I could do with having more holidays I think, partly because they inspire me to be creative!
If you were not a musician what would you do?
Something else creative. Photography, cinematography, I like the idea of being a perfumer – someone who comes up with new and interesting fragrances. I’m quite into perfume/fragrance as an art form, Christopher Sheldrake is my hero in that world, he’s unique and I love his story of how he got into perfumery, it wasn’t planned.
I’d also like to be involved in directing or making films, even if it would mean working with a director and sharing my ideas. I’m always dreaming up film/story synopses, characters and scenes, I just wouldn’t know where to start (or have the budget or time) to turn them into films. There’s a hell of a lot of work that goes into films, but I feel like I have something to offer in some way to that world.
‘Phantom Brickworks (LP II)’ is out now via Warp Records. Buy a vinyl copy from Inverted Audio Record Store.
Introduction by Simon Whight
Interview by Tom Durston
Photography by Stephen James Wilkinson & Richard Roberts
TRACKLIST
1. DINORWIC
2. DOROTHEA’S BED
3. PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VI
4. SURAM
5. LLYN PERIS
6. PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII
7. TEGID’S COURT
8. BROGRAVE
9. SPIDER BRIDGE
10. SYCHDER MCMLXXXIX
