We're just three guys who want to make you dance. 
Download our album for free here: http://www.regenerates.bandcamp.com 

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.

New album 'Lucifer On The Sofa' out now.
Spoon Store: https://store.spoontheband.com/

Founded in Omaha, Nebraska in 1993, Saddle Creek is an independent record label known for championing groundbreaking and influential artists across genres. The label operates with staff in Omaha, Asheville, Los Angeles, and New York City.

My name is Ryan Keller and I have an inescapable itch to write and create music. It’s an itch that’s been there since I was a child and has grown into a full-on eczema patch that covers my whole soul. 

I began writing music before I knew how to play music. When I was young, I would have a song in my head and I would just have to figure out how to play it on a guitar or piano. I learned how to play drums on a beat up office chair turned around backwards. Fortunately, my parents saw the initiative and got me a drum kit. Then it was on. I would experiment with an old tape recorder in various locations in my room to find the most optimal recording spot, letting that Yamaha keyboard I’d gotten when I was a kid play a recorded midi riff while I played the drums along.

When I was a teen, I got a hold of an old Tascam 4-track and my whole life changed. I went through a lot of recycled church sermon tapes (you know, the white ones), making all kinds of weird recordings. I used that 4-track to record the first band I was in, a long-genre-titled metal band. Shortly after, I upgraded to two Fostex 8-tracks in which I developed my musical writing in the most awkward, metaphorically pubescent way. By my late teens, my bedroom was a tangle of wires, knobs, and instruments.

But the itch grew. In my twenties, I continued playing in a hardcore band while expanding the musical styles that I recorded across many genres. There was even a really strange and awkward rap period that was short-lived and just terrible. I held on to those Fostex machines for some time before joining the computer recording revolution. Now, I record digitally which allows me to be a lot lazier and crank out songs much faster. 

The music ranges from acoustic and original rock tones using all real instruments to electronic sounds and beats. The lyrics go from broad to simple, covering the whole emotional spectrum. Every song is an expression of mine. I hope you enjoy!


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