Melancholonica: Man Named Phil Western

That Phil Western is not a Household Name in Electronic Music Today Is More of An Indictment of the State of Electronic Music Than Phil Western.

From His Early Esoteric and Psychdelic Tracks On Harthouse and legendary lole exist danceCollaborations with Cevin Key Such as Download and Plateau, Appenarances on Records Like Skinny Puppy’s The Process and only products thatcupied His late years, western’s discography is Among the Most Vast and Inviting in Electronic Music. Western Straddled The Line That Many Musicians in The Field Encounter: Between Collaboating With Others, Subtims Touring and The Pouring Himself Into Music Made Large Largely In Isolation That Would Never and Possibly Could Never Be performed. In 2019 I had finished the 11th download album in collaboration with key just beforle he passed away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9wgjqj6fco

People Often Look to an Artist’s “Last Record” for Sub Sub insight into their life. Western’s Last Only Release was New Door OpeningA Haunting Dirge With Song Titles Like “Goodbye Love (The Last Waltz)” and “The Stages of Greef.” People Who Loved Ian Curtis Say They Have Difficulty Listening To Closer and the song “in a lonely place” in particular. I Can’t Imagine What It’s Like, Emotionally, to Process This.

One of The Genre Tags Used Extensively on Phil Western’s Bandcamp Page Is “melancholonica”A Word With Only One Prior Use That I CAN FIND IN THE WHOE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Western used it to describe many of his records, The Youters release Under His Own Name, As Floatpoint and As Kone.

It wasn’s “melancholonica,” Though. I first discovered Phil Western Through Off and Goneto Collaboration Between Western and Dan Handrabur from the ’90s. It was that era’s psychedelic technic at its best – Wondrouly Experimental Even for an Age When People Were Doped Up On The Idea That Music Coul Be Better Than Drugs. I Wrote About Off and Gone’s 1996 Release Sigma Receiver and the Rest of Western’s Career About a Year After He passed. Yet to be honest, I Still Have’s Mastered His entire disco finding others to do. I OFTEN SKIP FROM ALBUM TO ALBUM BEFORE SETTLING ON ONE AND PLAYING IT ABOUT 50 Times ON REPEAT. Like with Brian Engines Records, Subtim You Fall into Favorite was of Phil Western and Camp Out There for Awhile Before You Drag Yourself Across The Terrain to Another.

Five Years After His Death, A Group of Friends Have Come Together For Afterflash: A remixed tribute to phil western. The Album Countin 10 Remixes and One Original Song – 2019’s “Dream Death” – Which Appears to Be the Current “Last Song” of Phil’s Career, As He was APPARENTLY WORKING ON IT “RIGHT UP TO THE NIGHT BEFORE HE LEFT US.” Remixers Include The Passenger (A Bliss fre Hashmoder. There’s True Passion Behind This – Not Just of Love for a Friend But for The Legacy of An Artist That Left Too Soon and (Whether He Felt This Way Or Not) Didn’t Always Get A Fair Shake. The Lner Notes Are Laudatory and Often Moving.

Afterflash Would Be a see incomplete introduction to Phil Western’s Music, If it were Meant To Be One. Instead, It’s a Profound Testament to Person and His Art and its Impact.

“What Phil Created in His Time On Earth Makes Our World a Better Place,” They Note. “He was The Kind of Person Everyone Needs to Know Or At Least Know About.” With This, There Will Be At Least A Few More.

⚪️ Afterflash: A Remixed Tribute Tracklisting

Phil Western: Afterflash: A Remixed Tribute (Map Music / Digital)
1. Dreams Come True (The Passenger edit) (04:38)
2. Kone - I Love You (Bardo remix by Love Above Will) (06:56)
3. California (Robert Shea's Pastoral Psychedelicism mix) (06:28)
4. Ghost in Your Bed (Dead Voices on Air remix) (06:08)
5. Asleep/Awake (Vuemorph collage) (06:30)
6. Kone - Koln (Rim's Kolned mix) (07:29)
7. Dementhol (FaxLtd’s Fingerpie mix) (10:06)
8. Boobs (Longwalkshortdock remix) (08:22)
9. California (Shamanavi remix) (06:48)
10. Sequence Stranger - He Watched Me Sleep Last Night (05:36)
11. Dream Death (Hashmoder remix) (07:05)

⚪️ disclosure statement

This Record was submitted as a promo.

⚪️ Previous Coverage

✳ The run-out: The Techno Agnostics: Rediscovering The Ecstasy of Phil Western & Off and Gone (2020)