Phantogram - Eyelid Movies

Two friends from a small town in upstate New York holed up in a converted barn and came out with one of the sharpest debut albums of its era. Eyelid Movies, released on Barsuk in 2009, introduced Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel as Phantogram and set the template they have been refining ever since: hip-hop drum programming, blown-out guitar textures, and vocals that hover somewhere between seduction and dread.

"Mouthful Of Diamonds" opens the record on a bassline that struts, and "When I'm Small" became the breakout, its lurching beat and Barthel's cool delivery turning up everywhere for years afterward. Elsewhere "Turn It Off" leans into psychedelic haze, "As Far As I Can See" pulls the tempo down into pure trip-hop, and "You Are The Ocean" gives Carter room to stretch out. Self-produced and self-engineered by Carter, it has a homemade density that the duo's later, glossier records deliberately traded away.

More than fifteen years later it stands as the moment the pair arrived fully formed, and the record that still draws people back to the catalog first.

This reissue is pressed on clear vinyl with yellow swirl via Barsuk Records, cut by Paul Gold. A striking pressing of a debut that has aged remarkably well.