Dark Duck Records, 2007
http://www.darkduck.net

Stephen Philips founded the "DarkDuck" label to feature electronic ambient sounds that were too esoteric and abstract even for ordinary ambient listeners. And among the explorers he represents, he is himself the epitome of the Dark Duck sound. Philips, over the years, has created every sort of audio experiment from raucous cacophony to serene nature-inspired sounds to toneless abstractions of white or dark whooshing noise. In "Soliton," his latest release, (a "soliton" is a kind of standing wave in physics) he unleashes a somber fantasy on just a few notes, and an interval of a fifth. Working with a limited palette of metallic electronics and heavily modified sampled sounds, he moves through an ominous world of growling machinery and deep engines, building up an eerie sound journey which could easily accompany a film or videogame set in an industrial underworld.

Stephen Philips belongs to what I would call the "School of Stillstream," a group of ambient creators who connect through an online "radio station," net-based distribution labels, and an online chat group. Stillstream emphasizes live ambient playing, and almost all the "meetings" of the chat group feature an electronic improvisation, available directly to the listeners through Internet live "broadcast." The chat group gives comments and feedback to the improviser. "Soliton" comes from one of these sessions. The entire fifty-minute piece was played and recorded in real-time, and has been released by Philips with no cuts or re-mixing, and only minimal adjustments in tone and volume. Ambient electronic music, helped by continuing advances in synthesizing equipment and software, has come into its own as a performance event as well as a work of studio engineering. Stephen Philips is a fine artist in both modes.

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