Product Description
2 Let the Ghost Bleed
3 A Soul’s Price Paid
4 Fisherman’s Cove
5 A Thoughtful Approach
6 Feeling “the” Question Why
7 Zuwara – Place of the Elders
8 Time Table
9 Conceiver
10 Century Folding Pt. I
USHK92640201
Echoes Radio September 2026 CD of the Month
John Diliberto writes, “lf your most sensual and expansive imaginations had a soundtrack it would be Phippen & Taylor’s Two by Twilight, a mood of ambient atmospheres and serene global flutes.”
CD Limited edition of 200 available at the Projekt Bandcamp page (CD is not available from this page or our European partners.)
Genres: Ambient, New Age, World Fusion
On Two By Twilight, Peter Phippen's haunting, emotional, and esoteric antique bamboo and wooden flute improvisations harmonize with the dark hues of Eric "the" Taylor's surreal, moody, and dreamlike analog synthesizers conjuring soundworlds on the edge of a nocturnal realm. This netherworld is imbued with mystery, reaching out of the shadows while remaining on the periphery.
Peter recalls that the recording process was very organic, "Two By Twilight musically is unlike anything I have ever done before. Eric had some synth and field recording sound textures prepared for me when I got to his studio in Rochester, New York. The flute improvisations seemed to just fall into place on these soundscapes without thinking. Immediately, there was a connection. It was as if the emotions pouring out of the flutes had always belonged. There was a 'rightness' surrounding the understated, spectral cries as they emerged out of thin air. One should never question that kind of synergy."
Pablo Bilbao of Cyclical Magazine writes, "The album is wonderful!! Undoubtedly a meeting of two great musicians. It’s a masterpiece."
Eric adds, "I came to search out Peter after I lost my woodwind player Sonam Targee to Lou Gehrig's disease. Sonam had a unique approach to playing woodwinds, and I feel similar energy in Peter's playing. Jeff Towne was on hand to engineer many of the Phippen sessions and provided the final mixes, drawing on his many years of professional experience with this genre of music.”
Engineer Jeff Towne adds, "When I first learned about this project, I was expecting a novel cultural collision: a juxtaposition of sounds with little in common which could result in an interesting fusion. But from the moment Peter started playing his wooden and bamboo flutes over Eric’s electronic soundscapes, what I heard instead was a comfortable conversation as if these seemingly unrelated elements shared a language already. Modern synths and old flutes apparently have something in common, at least when these two musicians meet at twilight."
Two By Twilight is a storyteller as much as it is a spellbinding prophecy, featuring galactic synth ascensions that slip into dark undergrowth-like themes where the listener remains the main character.
About the artists:
Peter Phippen is a 53rd Grammy Awards nominee and a 2021 Native American Style Flute Awards Lifetime Achievement winner. Phippen is respected for his ability to master a variety of antique and contemporary traditional flutes. Phippen's work explores the intersection of spirituality, nature and human emotion, creating soundworlds that are both introspective and deeply meditative.
Eric “the” Taylor began his career as a drummer in the alternative music scene of Upstate NY in the ‘90s. This evolved into his use of synthesizers, formulating recording studio techniques including work in the progressive ambient outfit The Fragile Fate with Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel, Robert Fripp) and synthesist Rupert Greenall (The Fixx). In recent years "the" Taylor has worked with David Helpling on two celebrated releases on Spotted Peccary.
Credits:
Peter Phippen: 19th century C. Peloubet boxwood flute, Edo-period shakuhachi flutes, Taisho-era shakuhachi, 19th century Native American Mojave flute replica, contemporary Olwell bamboo flute
Eric "the" Taylor: 1981 Sequential Circuits Rev 3 Prophet 5, 1981 Korg Mono/Poly, ASM Hydrasynth Deluxe, 1984 Sequential Circuits Six-Trak, 1975 Micromoog, Kontakt 7, Pro Tools, electronic and acoustic percussion, Arcosanti forged bell, found sound and field recordings
Composed by Eric "the" Taylor and Peter Phippen.
Recorded by Eric "the" Taylor and Jeff Towne at Forcefield Studios, Rochester NY.
Mixed by Jeff Towne and Eric "the" Taylor.
Produced by Eric "the" Taylor, Peter Phippen, and Jeff Towne.
Mastered by Robert Rich at Soundscape, Carmel CA.
Eric "the" Taylor appears courtesy of Spotted Peccary Music.
Reviews Editor –
From Echoes
A Buddhist Temple in Space: Peter Phippen & Eric “the” Taylor’s Two by Twilight
Peter Phippen and Eric “the” Taylor want to take you into a contemplative state. But this isn’t the kind of music found on countless cookie-cutter “Music for Meditation” albums. That’s not their intent at all. Two by Twilight takes you into a land of imagination.
Peter Phippen is well-known in the flute and New Age worlds. He first came to prominence in the mid-1990s playing Native American flutes, but he’s since expanded into a panoply of ancient instruments from around the world. Eric “the” Taylor is an electronic artist working in the ambient zone with groups including The Fragile Fate and Dark Sky Alliance. He most recently recorded with David Helpling.
Both artists live in a world that isn’t dominated by overt melody, repeated choruses, hooks or any kind of conventional song structure. Taylor orchestrates an abstract world of sound where rhythms may sometimes enter, but often the music floats free. That suits Phippen, who is a purely improvising musician. He doesn’t really play tunes, yet somehow remains melodic without actually executing a melody.
Two by Twilight opens a little deceptively with chimes and gently swirling synths on the title track. Phippen blows a shakuhachi across this electronic field that grows increasingly complex in its abstraction with random sounds oscillating in and out of the mix. It sets the stage for for a sound that will get increasingly intense which leads to “Let the Ghost Bleed,” On that track, Taylor releases surging synth chords that are organ-like with deep bass swoops that sound like a whale in slow motion. The way Phippen wraps his flute around them, it sounds almost cinematic, like an ambient battle hymn. This call to arms is really a call to the spirit, a concept that fuels much of Two by Twilight.
The title “A Thoughtful Approach” is appropriate because it may be the most melodically pre-conceived track on the album. It opens with a mysterious foreign voice before a drone and flute enter. Phippen’s flute creates a melodic outline that Taylor fills with reverb and synth reflections. Like much of Two by Twilight, the electronic landscape remains abstract until gentle percussion and a sequencer pattern emerge. Phippen traverses this world like a hawk surveying the terrain. There is an environmental feel to the record, except it’s nature on an alien planet where the biosphere is technological. “Fisherman’s Cove” sets up harbor ambience with what sounds like a boat’s propeller wandering in the distance. It sounds swampy as flutes, that could be both processed or synthesizers, move like snakes slithering through the water and into the underbrush. But again, nature goes alien as the synthesizers go Twilight Zone.
Some tracks can be gentle, like the idyll of “Feeling the Question Why.” Others almost get rhythmic, such as “Zuwara.” It begins with an Islamic chant recorded off a shortwave radio and phased, reminding me of the opening of “Master Builder” by Gong. The chant runs throughout the background of the track, including the last third, when taiko drums and a sequencer rhythm arrive and the music almost starts rocking. It’s like a psychedelic Buddhist temple sent into space.
Peter Phippen says he improvises everything. He walks into Taylor’s studio, listens to the tracks the electronic artist has created and just lets go. In that regard, he takes us on the same journey he’s on, exploring the sonorities and emotions of Taylor’s soundscapes.
By the time “Conceiver” reveals itself, you’ve been through an interior journey, but now the sun has started shining. Loosely based on a Javanese gamelan rhythm, it moves at the slow, stately pace you’d expect from the gentler side of gamelan music. Taylor deploys sparse metallophones on what turns out to be the brightest track on the album. You emerge into the light after a dark, introspective journey, and suddenly it feels like it’s all going to be okay.
The final track, “Century Folding Pt.1, is both a landing spot and a transition, possibly suggesting a second phase. Taylor’s soundscape is pure, if turbulent, drone zone with Phippen blowing low Shakuhachi calls. It gets very intense until the last moment when a kalimba comes in along with a high glissando and fades out into space.
As the album ends, you don’t wake up as if from a dream. You wake up into a world transformed, if only for a moment. Two by Twilight might strike some listeners as a meditative album, but this is music for meditators who think while they meditate. -John Diliberto