NOISEY 127: PHANTOGRAM

These guys take their name from an old-school optical illusion, a visual trick that occurs when you superimpose a red image over a blue one; throw on some 3D glasses and stand at the correct distance, and you get the impression of depth.

A few years back, Sarah Barthel and childhood friend Josh Carter were trying to think of a better name for their band, Charlie Everywhere. They may have achieved the impossible and actually chosen a good one—Phantogram (the band) is two people who can make an absolute mountain of noise through samplers, drum machines, and analog synths. They’re in the depth-creation business, using minimal technology to work out something bigger—in this case, gauzy, beat-driven electro-pop.

Barthel and Carter rekindled their friendship in the mid-aughts when they were living in Vermont and New York, respectively. They started working on some material and the band picked up steam quickly. Before they had a chance to put out their 2009 self-released debut, Eyelid Movies, the UK label BBE Records picked it up. Barsuk Records followed suit early the next year.

On Phantogram’s next release, the enigmatic EP Nightlife, you can hear shreds of Histoire De Melody Nelson, Gainsbourg’s 1971 concept album that featured Jane Birkin’s breathy vocals playing the role of a coy teenage nymphet. The textures are pulled from dreamy English idioms from the early 90s, namely shoegaze and trip-hop. But while those genres afforded an escape from the dehumanization of hyper-urban London, the band has hunkered down in the rolling hills of upstate New York; theirs is a sound that lacks a ceiling, an upbeat answer to the physical beauty of Saratoga County.