Bonnie Prince Billy/ The Phantom Family Halo

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

5...according to our Mike on Thu 26 May, 2011.

I don't think Will Oldham really needs any introduction at this point. If you're on this site reading this review and you don't know who he is then I'm really not sure what you're doing here anyway. The Phantom Family Halo is Dominic Cipolla, who has apparently put out some pretty crazy and awesome music of his own that I haven't heard. This record has quite an eerie psychedelic slant compared to Bonnie Billy's other work, and centres around a motorik 7-minute cover of the Everly Brothers' 'I Wonder If I Care As Much' which morphs into a full psych workout with some guitar heroics from a man listed in the liner notes as "William Benton (Cat Casual)" and takes up the majority of the second side - followed by the short but sweet 'Suddenly the Darkness' which surprisingly enough is easily the most upbeat track on the record, and seems to be about trying to stay away from depression. Actually, this track is total vintage Oldham goodness. Even though it's the shortest track on here there's a real carefree warmth to it that brings to mind the new Woods record, or the brighter moments of J Mascis's fantastic recent solo effort. The first side is taken up with a couple of spookier numbers which I suspect Cipolla had more responsibility for. They're both really excellent. The title track's kind of smouldering and threatening, and it's followed by a quite minimal track called 'Roki for Now' which starts out with a repetitive guitar and vocal groove before closing on a bit of minimal organ and electronic ambience that has kind of a Johann Johannsson feel. Yet another exciting addition to Oldham's already astonishing canon. Plus it's on lovely blue vinyl and I believe it's limited to 1,000 so you snooze you lose.

The Mindeater is a collaborative project birthed by ever-prolific Drag City recording artist Bonnie
“Prince” Billy and Dominic Cipolla, multi-instrumentalist and main brain behind the elusive
Phantom Family Halo. While Mr. Billy needs no introduction, his seemingly unending contributions
to the presentation of contemporary “folk” music have continued to surprise and impress audiences
for the better part of two decades.

Jumping right into the twenty-or-so minutes of music at hand, Bonnie’s vocal performance on The
Mindeater title-track is perhaps already one of his eeriest in years, recalling the creepy backwoods
paranoia of records like Arise Therefore (if there could ever be such a performance like those of
Arise Therefore). So it begins.

Beyond the world of weirdo, kraut-encrypted, Amon Düül-meets-Roxy Music glam jams, Mr. Cipolla
(also longtime member of Siltbreeze crack-folk improv ensemble Sapat) is surely the lesser known of
the duo, yet plays no less valuable a role over the course of the EP. The Phantom Family Halo takes
the songwriting reigns throughout a majority of The Mindeater, their third release to date on
Sophomore Lounge (following the Hurricane Fighter Plane 7” and 2010’s mysterious soundtrack
12” Music from Italian T.V.), in addition to full-length offerings on Karate Body and Black Velvet
Fuckere labels over the past five years.

Having met each other through mutual friend/local video store-owner/former SLINT bassist, Todd
Brashear (whom, by no coincidence, was more than happy to nail down some harmonies on their
version of I Wonder If I Care As Much), The Phantom Family folks hit it off quite nicely with Bonny
Billy last year when he joined them for a performance of the song at an anniversary party they were
asked to play with Roky Erikson.

That was summer of 2010 in their shared hometown of Louisville, KY. Since then, the two forces
have joined again, not only to record their psyched-out, full-band, live-in-studio rendition of the Every
Brothers’ classic, but also to cast a few spells of their own. The resulting tracks, The Mindeater,
Roki for Now, and Suddenly the Darkness, were stripped to the bone and recorded to tape on the
second floor of a funeral home where Cipolla lived until recently relocating to Brooklyn.