Record collector / DJ / Broadcaster / Producer / Brownswood Recordings boss / occasional remixer

'Opening The Door' EP out 16 September

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At the close of 2012, DENGUE FEVER, a band widely recognized for its trademark blend of 60’s Cambodian pop and psychedelic rock, proudly announced the launch of its homegrown label, TUK TUK Records. The band’s newly established independence marks yet another chapter in the continual evolution of a group unlike many in the Los Angeles music scene. 

Currently in the studio recording tracks for their next release, DENGUE FEVER launched TUK TUK to release their back catalog, potential solo music from its band members, and previously released but long out-of-print music related to each band member. Their first two releases included their long out-of-print eponymous debut (2003) and its critically acclaimed sophomore follow-up, Escape from Dragon House (2005). Amazon.com named Dragon House the #1 int’l release for 2005, and Mojo magazine named it in their Top 10 World Music releases of 2006. Each album has been expanded into digital deluxe editions with rare and unreleased bonus tracks from the band’s archives. 

Eminent musicians from around the world took notice of the band’s rise over their first half-decade. In 2008, Real World Records Founder and musician, Peter Gabriel, licensed their third release, Venus on Earth, for the world and noted, "They're California-based but have taken '60's Cambodian pop as their main source of inspiration and it's done with style. Its spirited, impassioned." More kudos came from Metallica’s Kirk Hammett who handpicked the band’s song “One Thousand Tears of A Tarantula” from Dragon House for his Rolling Stone magazine ‘Best Music Of The Decade’ ballot - as the second best song of the entire decade. International touring transpired quickly after the release of Venus including an inspired two-song set on the BBC’s Later with Jools Holland show (2009) followed by on-air praise from Ray Davies of the Kinks. Davies likened them to “….a cross between Led Zeppelin and Blondie. And I should know, I toured with both of them.” 

DENGUE FEVER’s latest release, Cannibal Courtship (Fantasy Records/Concord Music Group), was released in April 2011. Their latest record moved the needle yet again with the band performing live for the first time ever, in France, Mexico and Brazil. Today, only two continents (Africa and Antarctica) have yet to host a DENGUE FEVER performance.

Mass media exposure arrived in many forms for DENGUE FEVER and not just on the world stage. Tracks from their catalog have appeared in films such as City of Ghosts, Jim Jarmusch’s, Broken Flowers and The Hangover 2. Television series’ such as Showtime’s, Weeds, HBO’s hit series True Blood (who named an entire episode after one of their songs) and featured the band’s music and CBS’ series CSI: Las Vegas combined with numerous independent documentaries to feature the bands music. 

Always press darlings, band profiles in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Mojo, Uncut, Magnet, Wired, Spin, NPR’s “Fresh Air” Radio Australia, KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic” and World Café Live all profiled the band’s unique sound. In 2013, with new music being recorded, a back catalog that is beefed up with bonus tracks and tour dates being confirmed, the time is truly ripe for at least another 10 years of breaking down more musical barriers.

https://phantogram.komi.io/

Fall In Love Again (Desmond Remix) Out Now
Move In Silence feat. Big Boi Out Now

Sparked by a color or song that recalls the most joyful and tragic moments in your life, a sense memory vaults you into the distant past. These subtle triggers remind us that memory isn’t confined to the mind; it lives in the body, too. Phantogram’s fifth album, Memory of a Day, captures that disorienting sense of time travel. “We put these songs together as a capsule, thinking about how a certain sound or melody can bring you back instantly to a memory of a day,” Phantogram says. 

While they were recording, the duo fixated on life calendars, a gridded sheet in which each unit represents a single week of a person’s life on the planet. As you fill in the grid, you witness the progression of your life in stark terms. The older you get, the darker the grid becomes, reminding you of how much time you have lived, and how little you may have left. “It’s this exploded view,” Phantogram says. “Like an image of Earth from a distance.” The life calendar is both morbid and nostalgic, a physical representation of our ephemeral time on Earth. 

“Days are only numbers,” Sarah Barthel sings on the chorus of “Come Alive.” That lyric became a north star for the duo as they set forth to make Memory of a Day. At once heavy and ebullient, “Come Alive” distills the lasting impact Phantogram has made on popular culture. Since their 2010 debut, Eyelid Movies, Phantogram has been comparable to no one, futurists who still manage to stay ahead of the curve more than a decade into their career. Their genre-bending approach to pop has led them to work with everyone, from Big Boi, with whom they founded Big Grams, to Subtronics, Future Islands, Deftones, the Flaming Lips, Tom Morello, and Miley Cyrus, to name just a few. A festival staple across the globe, Phantogram has also toured with Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire, the XX, and many more. “We’ve always been proud of that: not being afraid of the experimental.”

Though their music has always been future-facing, to make Memory of a Day, Phantogram looked back. “Recording this album, it felt like how it did when we first started making music together,” Phantogram says. Alongside special collaborators like Mikky Ekko and Dan Wilson, Phantogram was joined in the studio by producer John Hill, who helmed Phantogram’s second album, Voices. The duo experimented in the studio and indulged in the music that brought them together in the beginning, artists such as J Dilla, Prince, Slowdive, and so much more. They reference new wave acts like the Talking Heads, ESG, and Liquid Liquid as influences on the percussive punk track “Feedback Invisible,” which is followed by the wistful burst of color “Attaway.” It’s a shoegaze song so sumptuous “you can almost see the grain in the guitar sounds.” 

Phantogram think in images when they write, drawing on scenes from films that linger with them years on. “Ever since Eyelid Movies, our work has been visually driven,” Phantogram says. In the video for the fuzzed-out waltz “All a Mystery,” snippets of human lives coalesce into a montage of experience. “Erase all the tapes in my mind/ Throw them all away,” Barthel sings, accompanied by a bittersweet swell of synths. “Turn back the tables of time/ Let all those memories die.” A swirl of memories, both triumphant and tragic, surface on Memory of a Day. “Come Alive” was written after Barthel experienced a transformative live show on her own, while the title track recounts the moment Josh Carter had to put his dog down. “It’s what you wanted, but couldn’t say,” he sings. “I’m not afraid of dying or what it feels like”

The album’s penultimate track, “Happy Again,” is a thrumming, bass-heavy rock song with a chorus that sounds like a wave crashing against the sand. “Another empty summer sunset/ Feeling homesick,” Barthel sings ahead of the bridge, her voice catching on the breezy, luminous production. “Can you believe this is your life?” It’s a moment of realization Phantogram compares to the dour scene in Forrest Gump, where Lieutenant Dan, “mega depressed and drunk,” throws a bummer New Year’s Eve party. Still, the song ends with an enlivening mantra. “I can be happy again,” Barthel repeats as guitars careen and crash. If days are only numbers, then how else can a person measure a life? On “Ashes,” the answer seems to be in moments of resilience. Based on the adage “you came into this world alone and you’ll leave it alone,” the throbbing production infused with elements of trip hop, shoegaze and indie accompanies Barthel as she reminds the listener: “Ashes rise, ashes rise.”

When they penned the lyrics, Phantogram thought of the mythical phoenix spreading its wings after catastrophe to take flight. The vulnerable, even despairing moments on Memory of a Day are stark, but they’re buoyed by a relentless optimism that has driven this project from the outset. In the Los Angeles studio where they recorded Memory of a Day, Phantogram often marveled at the distance they’ve come, both physically and spiritually, since they first started making music together in a barn in Upstate New York. “Tomorrow never knows,” Barthel nods to the Beatles on “Come Alive.” The accumulation of days together tell a story bigger than any finite lifetime, and Phantogram’s life calendar is only a fraction full.

Hello, it's me.

My new album "The Work" is out now on City Slang. 

thanks x

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