“An ambient delight”
Electronic Sound

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“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 Fimber Bravo.

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Aligning with the raw stylistic materials of Caribbean music, Henner set about creating a sparse, delicate, often beatless take on a music abundant with joyful sunshine and rhythm. The influence of minimalism and ambient music combines strangely, savagely with dubby snares and arpeggiated steel pans, culminating in a style perhaps best described as “ambient-calypso-dub”.

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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.

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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.

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