Phasmid

Phasmid is the alter ego of a civil rights lawyer and dad from Birmingham, Alabama who was inspired to make this album by Kraftwerk's The Man Machine, old analog gear he bought in high school, and cartoons set in outer space. Its unusual birth aside, Her Friend the Blue Star is a beautiful little record, full of sweet (but not sugary) electro gurgles, strange textures, and toothsome glitch that reminds of a young Aphex Twin without all the angst. Sealing the deal is a second disc, where Bochum Welt, Tim Koch, Isan and B. Fleischmann perform detailed remix duties on Phasmid's lilting bedtime stories. -- Vivian Host
- XLR8R

A double album featuring Phasmid’s original LP and a host of remixes by various artists working on the fringes of electronic music, the first thing to say about it is how wonderful the artwork is. Everyone expects decent artwork these days, so much of it bypasses comment, but the cover of ‘Her Friend’ really illustrates what to expect between the covers. A twee, rather fairytale landscape of ice and snow, all done up in shades of blue and white with different scenes on the CDs for ‘Day’ and ‘Night’ respectively, this is a pleasure to look at. The contents are also an expression of this artistic presentation. The original tracks comprise a kind of twinkly childlike journey on the scale of Isan or another Morr records artist. The music is characterised by simple melodies, playful sounds and kitsch electro-pop. The tunes themselves are gently insinuating rather than instantly grabbing. The second CD develops this dimension further. Tim Koch’s first interpretation of ‘The Sun Pictures’ creates an eerie jagged landscape that conjures up Nordic plains and chilly sunrises. This projection of nature is compounded elsewhere on the remix CD; Isan reconstruct the sounds of the forest and birdsong in ‘My Smallest Ghosts’ for instance. Overall the second CD builds on the beguiling simplicity of the first, weaving strange sounds and counter-melodies in and out of the original tracks, always careful to preserve the delicacy of Phasmid’s project.
- Absorb.org

Obviously, not all composer-hobbyists are worthy of celebration, but occasionally you get wind of one, an anonymous dude who has whiled away his time in a bedroom studio honing a superior craft, unknown to the general hipster population (and that includes my hip-ass self).
On his debut album, Kell Simon puts away his attache case (he's a civil rights lawyer by day) and gets his bleep on. As Phasmid, Simon concerns himself with futurist electropop instrumentals, which isn't exotic in and of itself; it's how he gets there that sets him apart. Her Friend The Blue Star doesn't hold an iota of sampling, nor was a computer ever utilized in its making. This one was done the old skool way, the manly way, and just the way Simon's heroes, Kraftwerk, would have done it. Well, okay, Kraftwerk didn't have a hard disc recorder, but they did have a bunch of analog gear and a romance with pop sensibility. Phasmid taps into the purity and warmth of Moog and Roland, as well as a lifetime of musical study in the realms of guitar, cello and classical composition, and carves out a heartfelt, winning sound from sine wave basics.

It would be easy for Phasmid to push his bleepbloop manifesto into videogame caricature, but he avoids that. The artist is a soundtrackish sophisti-crat; his melodies are not the hooky, get-stuck-in-your-mind kind. Rather, they are avenues toward a buoyant, atmospheric songcraft, bubbling with foot-tapping rhythm and coy innocence, tempered by technical knowhow and musical theory. Fans of Marumari or Lowfish will connect with the lackadaisical circuit board tones of "Drunk Of Opals" and "Electrod", each boasting their share of cascading analog synths, a hundred bubbles rising to the top of a glass of ginger ale. On "Las Mañanitas", Simon recruits his three year old daughter to add au natural laughing and singing; the result is a painfully cute song that tugs slightly at the heart with its wide-eyed charm (so what if Boards Of Canada did it first?).

Things in Phasmid's world aren't always so blithe. "The Sun Pictures" marks a slightly sinister bout with electro fetishism, while "Kitty Cat Bye Bye" pushes a skittering microhouse agenda that impresses, even when you forget that it was made sans computer. There's also a second disc of Phasmid remixes awaiting you upon reaching the album's chilly end. Disc Two is a nice little bonus for the IDM sect (there are inclusions by Bochum Welt, B. Fleischmann, isan and Headphone Science), but as the mixes don't really take the originals very far, this stunt is ultimately superfluous outside of attracting the interest of listeners unfamiliar with Phasmid. Come to think of it, that's not a bad thing at all.

- Splendidzine