Phobos

AN OCTOBER EVENING

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Review by John Shanahan of Hypnagogue 

hypnagogue.net

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This live recording from the 2015 Awakenings festival find Phobos (aka David Thompson) heading down into dark spaces and inviting us to join him. It’s an hour of minimal drone and thick textures, mostly cold and black as space. The main attraction here is the 44-minute “Awakening,” which showcases Thompson’s skill as a sonic guide. Although it dwells on the grimmer side of sound for the majority of its run, Thompson bends and shapes it through a strong variety of tones and textures. Early on there is some knob-twiddling that releases squibs of sound that push against the drone-wall beneath it; stretches of desolate wasteland get laid out before us in minimalist washes; and there are places where the darkness is quieter, and soothing. As he approaches the end, Thompson veers his tone up toward lightness and leads us into the 15-minute “Evening Sky.” Almost like a reprieve, this piece is pushed along on an easy, tapped-out rhythm and comforting pads. It is the essence of autumnal stargazing, captured in sound. The consistency of the rhythm pushes us toward a light trance state, and the warmth of Thompson’s pads is like the perfect blanket around us on this October evening. The closer, “Drift Away,” heads back into the shadows, but maintains a balance between dark and light.

While “Awakening” is going to appeal more to those who feed on darkness and drone, An October Evening is a full, immersive voyage that rewards any listener with a rich array of sound and feeling. It never goes full-on into an inaccessible darkness, but rather gives us that sensation of being out somewhere on a chilly, moonless night, in touch with or wary side, and still remembering to lift our eyes and drink in the expanse of starlight.

           

            

 

Review  by Bert Strolenberg

www.sonicimmersion.org/index.php

Since I’ve been following the nicely crafted atmospheric works of Phobos, David Thompson has been offered several opportunities to perform at UK’s Awakenings festival. If I’m not mistaken, "An October Evening" is his third live album recorded at that venue, featuring his full gig of October 17, 2015.

Once again, the slow unfolding and deep ambient outcome has a profound haunting and surreal impact. It paints images of the intense atmospheres found in the remnants of abandoned asylums, old graveyards and industrial estates along gloomy nature scenes. Sorrow, grief, desolation and anxiety set the score on the biggest part of the 44-minute "Awakening", relentless and without much remorse. Only in the last section of this piece, things morph into a lighter, friendlier and more inviting sphere.

The uplifting ethereal atmosphere continues flowing on "Evening Sky", which also welcomes a subtle rhythm. This ambient-space trip (accompanied by some great cosmic scenery on the dvd) lines up nicely to classic vidnaObmana. The CDr ends with an 8-minute encore, a slow spiraling moodscape done on the spur of the moment as the artist wasn't expecting to be asked to do one. All in all, this music is another fine job by David Thompson.

The hardcopy edition (limited to 50 copies) of this all new cinematic material includes a bonus DVDr featuring the backdrop video used at the concert, accompanied by the first two live tracks.

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SECTOR FOUR

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Review by Bert Strolenberg (Sonic Immersion)
www.sonicimmersion.org/index.php

Fans of the music of Phobos don’t have to worry about the character and mood of the music contained on his fifth album, as "Sector Four" sees a nice continuation of the vast, intense dronescapes of Mr Thompson’s excellent effort "This Desolate Place" (although it might also be a sequel of that).

The 69-minute free form "Sector Four", composed with VST’s and one hardware synth, further explores and implements darker visions: mysterious curls and underworldly textural maps are stretched out all over the sonic canvas as they morph on and on. With an eye to quality and detail, the immersive, steady evolving and stark space-ambient soundscapes take the listener into distant lands beyond the imagination, a haunting and deep atmospheric world where the shadows reign and the descent is imminent.

It’s an almost transcendental experience to be wrapped in the building mass of textural drones, especially those showing up after the 40-minute mark. The grand and the majestic meet shortly after that, making things dissolve in the larger scale of things while occasional harsher sound effects fly by. The lush release found near the end puts things into perspective, while bringing things somewhat into balance again. It would have been nice though if the continuous recording had a few index points as reference.

Headphones are a must to grab the full impact, power and potential of the meticulously rendered ambient spaces making up "Sector Four".
Well accomplished, David!

Review by John Shanahan of Hypnagogue
hypnagogue.net

Over the course of a dark, droning hour, Phobos’ Sector Four lays out textured, impressionistic ambient to capture the vastness of some as-yet-unexplored corner of space. If you are patient and enjoy a certain sparseness of sound, this album will suit you well. Artist David Thompson gives himself the full stretch of time to slowly build his imagery and while there is a constant dynamic at play, it’s certainly not in a hurry to get anywhere. Although it is a single long track, Sector Four feels like it passes through three stages. At first, Thompson keeps things on the very quiet side, using the long drones to cut your mind free and set it adrift. Which, of course, means you need to listen to it a few times to make sure you’ve heard all of it. You’re going to lose some listening time to spacing out. After about half an hour, Thompson subtly ups the intensity; the textures are more tactile, an edge of urgency works into the sound, and everything becomes a bit more full. The landscape remains vast and desolate, but now features more detail, more mystery. The changeover works especially well after you’ve been lulled into willing submission. In the last shift, the whole thing rises up in tone, density and intensity, brightening up like we’ve discovered something. The end of our journey is upon us. It’s not an all-at-once change, however. Thompson takes us around the far side of whatever place we’ve reached, passing through its shadow once more before being able to breathe easy and admire the view.

Admittedly, I wasn’t crazy about Sector Four when I first listened. The beginning is extremely sparse and it stays that way for a good long while. It was only later, having looped through it a couple of times, that Thompson’s patient plan became more evident and I was able to appreciate the subtlety of how the album shifts. There is a well-defined through-line in play, an arc that satisfactorily resolves itself if you give it time. In the meantime, the work here is solid ambient/dark spacemusic that stands up to a close listen but also shines at low volume. It’s got darkness without the weight and fear, and hits a good spacemusic feel without resorting to tropes. A voyage very much work taking more than once.