Buy on limited cassette from Whities here:
https://whities.bandcamp.com/album/syon4-la-d-ploration-de-johannes-ockeghem-dylan-henner-edit

Josquin des Prez - La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem [Dylan Henner edit]

“Mesmeric and soaring...A genuine treasure to find.”
Magmal Blog


Secretive newcomer Dylan Henner - who describes his work as “bliss-out ambient” - releases his debut EP A Reason for Living through Phantom Limb in February 2019.

Comprising multiple parts - a nostalgic analogue-synth backbone inspired by Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh and Brian Eno; strange new-age orchestration that touches on the organic midi of Geinoh Yamashirogumi; a love of American minimalism and its polyrhythms; noisey drones in the style of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma or Grouper; field recordings from across various cultures and environments - A Reason for Living announces a new artist with high ambition.

The record was largely formed over Henner’s travels in his day-job as a photographer’s assistant. Exploring with a handheld analogue synth and a field recorder (“no laptop!”) across India, the Middle East, Morocco, the Americas, South East Asia and Australia, much of the album’s conceptual framework existed long before the songs themselves, inspired by local musics and ambient sound. Henner then took this bank of starting places back home to flesh out completed pieces. “The fundamental theme woven through the record is the universality of life”, Henner writes. “Though societies and cultures and conventions and customs vary a great deal across the world, at the inescapable core is the state of humanness. I wanted to dig into that core and see how it feels without the rest attached.”

Musically, the fundamental core of A Reason for Living is rooted in its ruminative spareness. Opener ‘I Had to Wash The Shirt I Lost’ marries empty space with resonant, shuddering synthesis, and then disappears back into the darkness as if it itself had been a dream. It is followed by ‘The Beach Was Covered In Coral’, which journeys Reichian percussion through a slowly-evolving multitude of reverb responses, punctuated with zither and major-chord choral hits. Crucially, the record is far from joyless; not as straight-faced as “ambient music” often is. Laughter, happiness and innocence flourish through the field recordings. The chanting vocal-percussion of ‘Marie Fell Asleep With Her Shoes On’ brims with euphoria.

Unforthcoming on biographical details (“I prefer the music to speak for itself”), Henner contacted Phantom Limb through his friendship with Berlin-based producer Eomac.

The artwork for the EP was created by Henner himself, based on Native American folk art, and highly representative of the dreamy unreality of his music - a ghostly, quasi-spiritual structure floats in empty space while words and details echo around.

Marie Fell Asleep With Her Shoes On

“An ambient delight”
Electronic Sound

“Births a sparse yet enveloping world…[and] blossoms into cascading serenity”
Concrete Islands


The secretive Dylan Henner returns with his second EP of 2019, the “Carribbean ambient”-styled Stormbird Brother in the Dusk, featuring the steel pans of legendary Trinidadian musician (and Moshi Moshi artist) Fimber Bravo.

Aligning with the raw stylistic materials of Caribbean music (as much Equiknoxx as Tapper Zukie), and recordings by masterful steel pan player Fimber Bravo, Henner set about creating a sparse, delicate, often beatless take on a music abundant with joyful sunshine and rhythm. The influence of Jon Hassell, Brian Eno and Popul Vuh (all listed within Henner’s favourite artists) combines strangely, savagely with dubby snares and arpeggiated steel pans, culminating in a style perhaps best described as “ambient-calypso-dub”. 

Opening track “It Started Raining but It Only Lasted A Short Time” sees Bravo’s playing take a central role, clanging with ecstasy over Henner’s characteristic reverberous synths and field recordings. Conversely, “Sunlight Came In Through The Blinds” treats the steel pan like a music box - sweetly drifting, lulling with nocturne bliss.

Careful not to retread the same steps as his February 2019 debut A Reason For Living, this new EP sees Henner take his love of American minimalism, early ambient music and found-sound as a flexible rulebook. “I wanted to use my interest in ambient music - my modus operandi - like a traditional, black-and-white chessboard,” he writes. “So I could borrow wildly coloured chess pieces from a totally different place and have them play the same game in a new environment. The same rules, but with a new King and a new Queen and so on.”

Steadfastly remaining within Henner’s soundworld - and still proving a crucial backbone to his music - are the field recordings taken from his travels in his day-job as a photographer’s assistant. Exploring with a handheld analogue synth and a field recorder (“no laptop!”) across seemingly endless destinations, Henner’s environmental recordings act like fertile fields onto which his compositions are sown.

Unforthcoming on biographical details (“I prefer the music to speak for itself”), Henner initially contacted Phantom Limb through his friendship with Berlin-based producer Eomac. He does note that he plays tuned percussion, analogue synthesisers and cello. His music was featured in the BBC2 documentary Shadow Commander, a biopic of Iranian military leader Qassim Souleimani, and he has remixed Oliver Coates, Eomac, Fran & Flora, Prefuse73 and others.

The artwork for the EP was created by Maltese designer and musician Leona Farrugia, based on photography by Dylan Henner.

It Started Raining But It Only Lasted A Short Time

https://dylanhenner.bandcamp.com/album/the-invention-of-the-human

Dylan Henner

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