Product Description
2 Three Shadows
3 A Dream Diary
4 Longing Cries
5 Hollows
6 Field of Gray
7 The Phantom Moon
"Atmospheric dream, Ivar Lunde Jr.’s treatments and arrangements bring out the best in Peter Phippen and Paulina Fae in this exploration of fantasy and folk. My wife had to pull the car over to listen when the title track came on the car’s playlist when we were out driving! Highly recommended." -Jack Porcello, File Under Popular
Genres: Ambient, Meditation, DreamPop
For Fans Of: Laurie Anderson, Gary Stroutsos, Liesbet Leory
Peter Phippen’s fervent, emotive flute entwines with Paulina Fae’s ethereal vocals and Ivar Lunde Jr.’s introspective ambient soundscapes to form a ghostly world shimmering with melancholy, beauty, and wistful elegance. Each of The Phantom Moon‘s seven compositions moves as a slow mist — unfolding with lingering intensity in a nocturnal environment, steeped in hues of mystery.
The creative process was intimate and organic: the music arrived first, and Paulina responded with her voice — soft and silken, like lullabies sung across time — weaving non-lyric tones, whispers, and harmonies that drift between shadow and light. Interlaced with Peter’s haunting flute and Ivar’s textured atmospheres, the results feel both like memory and dream: a misty October night, tender and searching, haunted yet luminous.
This collaboration is a soundscape where calm and longing coexist, and where music itself becomes moonlight — fragile, mysterious, and full of quiet revelations.
Humans have gazed at the moon in wonder for millennia. As we look upon the phantom moon shining down on a field of gray which lies in the hollows, three shadows create an otherworldly presence of hope, reflection, and fear of the unknown. The moon’s beauty, along with longing cries of night create a dream diary for each of us to reflect upon as time passes during our brief stay here on earth.
| Marcus Leader (Author, Toltec Shaman, and Parapsychologist) writes:
|
🌖 Peter Phippen: Olwell bamboo flute, Edo-period shakuhachi flutes, Butch Hall Native American style bass flute, antique Native American flute, contemporary shakuhachi
🌖 Ivar Lunde Jr.: synthesizers, ambient textures, frame drum
🌖 Paulina Fae: voices, piano
Reviews Editor –
From Rockerilla
For several years, Phippen has been releasing his albums on Sam Rosenthal’s Projekt label. The last two, Primordial Forest (2023) and Earthly (2024), feature the Norwegian musician Ivar Lunde Jr., whose sumptuous synthesizers are also present on the recent The Phantom Moon. The new element in this album is the dreamy voice of Paulina Fae, a darkwave muse with many works released under various names over the past twenty years. Her sighs and pagan prayers alternate with the velvety tones of Phippen’s flute, sailing like caravels on the ocean of sound created by the synthesizers – NEW AGE FOR HEALING. -Roberto Mandolini
Reviews Editor –
From Chain DLK
The Phantom Moon is one of those records that doesn’t knock on the door – it seeps under it, like moonlight sneaking across the floor at 3 a.m., when you’re not sure if you’re awake, dreaming, or simply remembering something that never quite happened.
This collaboration between Peter Phippen, Ivar Lunde Jr., and Paulina Fae feels less like a project and more like a slow ritual accidentally left running. Phippen’s flutes – bamboo, shakuhachi, Native American variants, all breathing with a lived-in, almost conversational fragility – don’t perform melodies so much as confide in the air. They sound ancient without trying, like instruments that have seen enough sunsets to stop explaining themselves. Lunde Jr., a familiar presence in the ambient underground, builds the surrounding space with restraint and patience: synth textures that hover, frame drum pulses that feel ceremonial rather than rhythmic, silence treated as a collaborator instead of a gap to be filled.
Then there’s Paulina Fae, whose voice doesn’t arrive to sing in the conventional sense. It drifts, hovers, dissolves. No lyrics to pin meaning down, no hooks to reassure the rational brain. Her vocalizations function more like emotional weather: fog, distant warmth, the suggestion of a human presence just out of sight. At times she sounds like memory itself trying to remember its own origin.
What’s striking is how carefully the album avoids drama while remaining deeply emotional. This is nocturnal music without gothic excess, spiritual without incense overload. Even when melancholy dominates – and it often does – it’s a gentle, accepting melancholy, the kind that doesn’t ask to be cured. Tracks like “Three Shadows” or “Field of Gray” unfold with a patient inevitability, as if time itself has agreed to slow down out of respect.
There is, admittedly, a whiff of cosmic earnestness hovering over the project – the moon, the veil, the otherworldly presence – but the music earns its mysticism by never pushing it too hard. It doesn’t demand belief. It simply creates a space where belief, doubt, longing, and calm can coexist without arguing. If you find yourself rolling your eyes at the more rhapsodic interpretations surrounding the album, don’t worry: the sounds themselves remain grounded, tactile, human. No one is trying to sell you enlightenment in a deluxe bundle.
The Phantom Moon works best when listened to as a single arc, late at night, lights low, expectations even lower. It’s music for reflection without conclusions, for stillness without emptiness. When it ends, it doesn’t feel finished – just temporarily out of view, like the moon slipping behind a cloud, still there, still watching, quietly indifferent to whether you understood anything at all. Rating: 4/5 -Vito Camarretta
Reviews Editor –
Leader-Telegram
Peter Phippen, Ivan Lunde Jr. and Paulina Fae combine their unique talents in the new album, THE PHANTOM MOON. The CD features a unique soundscape of haunting vocals, absorbing synth and otherworldly flutes.
As musician Peter Phippen reflected on the release of the album THE PHANTOM MOON, he stressed that this was not a solo effort. “I wanted it to be a true collaboration – not somebody dictating, ‘Hey, you play this, ‘You sing this, ‘You go into the back- ground,” said Phippen.
While Phippen is well-known as an established rock bassist, he also has a distinct connection to the flute. This musical side, he notes, was an accidental discovery at the age of 31. “My flute collection collection is pretty vast, my wife goes, ‘Why do you need more than one flute?” Phippen said with a laugh. His collection of flutes from all over the world – from antique Native American flutes to the Japanese shakuhachi – give each of Phippen’s pieces a unique sound, and sometimes they blend to make something truly otherworldly.
Phippen often collaborates with Ivar Lunde Jr. Lunde is an award-winning classical composer with piano concerto, choral and string quartet pieces coming in the near future. But, just as there is more to Phippen, there is more to Lunde as well. “I have always been interested in popular music, so that’s a no-brainer,” said Lunde. “I have always thought it would be fun to be a part of any ensemble who would have me.”
Though he stated that sometimes his classical background was treated negatively, it wasn’t with Phippen, and Lunde recalled the two experimenting with unique sounds, saying that Phippen “has an innate ability to o just mesh with what I have been doing. Having experience in the classical idiom is not a bad thing at all, because music is music,” he said. “I know [Phippen] is not thinking of structure when he plays, but he is. For him it comes natural. He just keeps playing.”
“I’m thankful to [Lunde],” Phippen said. “He’s really good – not just as a musician, but as a recording engineer and placing things in the mix where they belong. He knows I like a lot of dark effects and ‘ghostly’ stuff. That’s what I’m going for with the flutes.”
In the duo’s last two albums, PRIMORDIAL FOREST and EARTHLY, Lunde’s synth backings combine with Phippen’s flute playing to provide an atmospheric soundscape, and the otherworldly sound continues with THE PHANTOM MOON, which was released this Halloween. Like its predecessors, the new tracks have been labeled by many names – new age, dreampop, ambient music – but the end result defies easily falling into any particular genre.
Phippen noted, though, that for THE PHANTOM MOON, the approach was a bit different. “Usually [Lunde] and I go in and the main flute line and the most basic synthesizer line are the first two things to go down and then they go down live,” he said, “so there’s a performance and then we improvise on top of that, but we don’t control the improvisations. And this time it was done differently; we wanted to do something different. So [Lunde] says, ‘Let me come up with some things. Let me make some beds for you to play over, for you to improvise over.””
Phippen’s part then ended up being completely spontaneous, as he went in without hearing any of Lunde’s initial backings. But then there was even more change for the new album in the form of vocals courtesy of singer Paulina Fae, which blend with Phippen’s flutes and add to the surreal and haunting nature of the album’s tracks.
“I’d say my music lives in the realm of dreampop, though my recent songs often take the form of soft, drifting lullabies,” said Fae. “I think it could be described as ethereal and atmospheric music that moves through half-remembered dreams.”
“When I heard her album, GHOSTBIRDS, I immediately wrote to her, and I was like, ‘Wow, I love your new album,” recalled Phippen.
“[Phippen said that] my voice would be a right fit for what they were envisioning, and I was immediately intrigued by the project – how could I not be!” replied Fae. “It began with [Lunde] sending me the bare bones of his compositions, to which I recorded my vocal parts. The first set of songs already included [Phippen]’s flute pieces, while the next set did not, creating two distinct recording experiences I truly enjoyed. For those later pieces, [Phippen] would add his otherworldly flute work in response to my vocals.” Phippen was also enthusiastic about Fae’s piano playing, which is featured on a few of the new album’s tracks, including “Longing Cries.”
“What makes her piano playing special to me… is she chooses her notes wisely, and she leaves so much space. If you hear tinklings on the piano, you think: that’s just the right note in the right spot.”
The album has already started getting radio play in the United Kingdom, despite not even being out for a month. It has become part of the rotation for One World Music Radio’s New Age Radio Show as well as with the station’s radio host Steve Sheppard, who has played its tracks with other ambient and electronic music. The artists stated their enthusiasm not just for the project itself, but with how they hope their audience receives it.
“The project awakened a new layer of musical expression within, one that felt both freeing and transformative. Collaborating in that way opens new doors, inviting growth and unexpected ideas. I feel deeply fortunate to have been part of “THE PHANTOM MOON,” said Fae. “I hope listeners are carried into the landscape of each track, noticing the textures, the interplay with voices, flute and instruments, and the subtle layers that give each song its own life.”
“When you look at the moon, you can dream, and it’s far away. You have this big white circle and all of the blackness stars around you, and that’s what I think when I hear ‘The Dream Diary,’ for instance,” said Lunde. “Just listen and immerse yourself in the music.”
THE PHANTOM MOON is available wherever you purchase music. Phippen will also have a solo show playing antique flutes and museum flute replicas at 2 Roots Art and Wine Gallery 214 S. Barstow St., in Eau Claire on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at 7 p.m. -Regev Nystrom
Reviews Editor –
From Exposé
One could say that the longer nights as winter approaches suggest a more perfect listening experience for floating ambient music, but anyone who knows me knows that I’m good with it around the clock all year long. The Phantom Moon features three artists who have appeared in Exposé many times over recent years: Peter Phippen plays a variety of flutes – bamboo flute, various Native American flutes, shakuhachi (both contemporary and Edo period) and more; Ivar Lunde, Jr. who has often appeared on recordings with Phippen (Galaxies, Earthly, Primordial Forest), plays synthesizers, frame drum and electronics; Paulina Fae compliments the sound of the other two with wordless vocals and piano. While the flutes, on their own in the hands of the right player can produce a beautiful sense of peace and tranquility, the addition of the synthesizers and Fae’s vocals magnifies that effect tenfold, making the seven tracks on The Phantom Moon the key to a completely immersive experience that a listener can easily get lost within.
The opener, “Other Worldly Presence,” is exactly that; Paulina’s soft, ethereal voice, somewhere between melodic and whispered, introduces the sequenced synth followed by deeper notes and Phippen’s flutes in a haunting and majestic soundworld where each member of the trio evokes a call and response to and from all the others. With the follow-on, “Three Shadows,” shakuhachi takes a dominant role while Fae adds her voice and a bit of piano to the backdrop of koto (synth, of course) for a most dreamy effect, conjuring up images of ancient Japan. Electronics open the gripping “Field of Gray,” while the flute and voice seem to enter from nowhere, offering up a shimmering cloud of sound where the flute takes flight, while “Longing Cries” seems to take a more conventional path to the top of the sacred mountain. The closing title track begins with a soft deep drum and flute, followed by voices and synth, perhaps the most immersive piece in the entire set, at once subtle, peaceful and dazzlingly beautiful. -Peter Thelen