There’s not enough of it. Phantom Lights are just that, flitting phenomena glimpsed sidewise in the middle of the night. They’re gone once you blink, but they remain imprinted on the periphery of your cornea and the fringe of your memory. Their mystery and promise tantalize in their disappearance. You’d do anything to get them back.
Memory Drawings harness the Phantom Lights. A collective of like-minded musicians dedicated to whimsy and enigma, the ensemble, led by hammered dulcimer player Joel Hanson, carefully lay out the framework for a narrative whose plot teeters on the balance of suspense and fantasy, the specter of death and the hope of magic prominent in every second and every note. Indeed, Phantom Lights contains a novella’s worth of emotional beats and carefully outlined development, thrusting the listener directly into its storyline and skipping them along at the pace of revelation.
But there’s not enough of it. Phantom Lights is a mini album, and it ends much too quickly, although it’s hard to argue with its satisfaction. Maybe next time we’ll get a novel instead of a novella, or a full-length feature film instead of a short. I can only wonder what’s lurking in the back of the imaginations of the players here, and any time between now and the moment they reveal it is too long.
RIYL: Rachel’s, Hood, Bark Psychosis. On sound in silence.
[Visit full site to view media]Phantom Lights by Memory Drawings