PHANTOGRAM Release New Album 'Memory Of A Day'
PHANTOGRAM TOUR DATES
1/15 - Brooklyn Bowl - Las Vegas, NV
1/16 - House of Blues Anaheim - Anaheim, CA
1/17 - SOMA - San Diego, CA
1/19 - The Van Buren - Phoenix, AZ
1/22 - House of Blues Dallas - Dallas, TX
1/24 - ACL Live at The Moody Theater - Austin, TX
1/25 - House of Blues - Houston, TX
1/27 - House of Blues - New Orleans - New Orleans, LA
1/28 - The Hall - Little Rock, AR
1/29 - Ryman Auditorium - Nashville, TN
1/31 - Tabernacle - Atlanta, GA
2/03 - The Ritz - Raleigh, NC
2/04 - The Fillmore Silver Spring - Silver Spring, MD
2/06 - Brooklyn Paramount - Brooklyn, NY
2/08 - The Fillmore Philadelphia - Philadelphia, PA
2/10 - House of Blues Boston - Boston, MA
2/12 - Danforth Music Hall - Toronto, ON
2/13 - Saint Andrew's Hall - Detroit, MI
2/14 - Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom - Chicago, IL
2/15 - The Fillmore Minneapolis - Minneapolis, MN
2/18 - Fillmore Auditorium - Denver, CO
2/19 - The Union - Salt Lake City, UT
2/21 - Moore Theatre - Seattle, WA
2/22 - Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, BC
2/24 - Roseland Theater - Portland, OR
2/26 - The Masonic - San Francisco, CA
2/28 - Hollywood Palladium - Hollywood, CA
Today, Phantogram has released their fifth album, Memory Of A Day via Neon Gold Records, which can be heard / purchased here: https://neongoldrecords.ffm.to/moad. Sparked by a color or song that recalls the most joyful and tragic moments in your life, a sense memory vaults you into the distant past. These subtle triggers remind us that memory isn’t confined to the mind; it lives in the body, too. The new album captures that disorienting sense of time travel with the band noting, “We put these songs together as a capsule, thinking about how a certain sound or melody can bring you back instantly to a memory of a day.”
Alongside the LP, the duo - Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter - have shared their latest single, the driving, gauzy and wistful burst of color, “Attaway.” Of the track, they share, “‘Attaway’ might be our favorite song on the whole album. We love the way the pattern of the chords change throughout the song, yet still sounds cohesive and isn’t confusing. The way we incorporated a spaced-out looped sample with driving bass and angular guitar challenged us in a really fun and creative way. The massive, washed out and hypnotic chorus came so naturally in the studio. As unconventional as this song may seem on paper, it flowed out of us in a way that reminds me of why we make music in the first place, capturing the pure emotion and true essence of our being. This song makes the hair on my arm stand up and reminds me of who we are and who Phantogram is: a band with no rules - sonically, rhythmically, and emotionally - yet still maintains a familiar voice that is uniquely ours. Our goal from the inception of Phantogram was to make music that we would want to hear, never stop creating and challenging ourselves, and it is such a special feeling that we’ve been able to continue doing that - both sonically and lyrically - and as best friends by each other’s side.” Listen to “Attaway” here
Having recently wrapped a tour as the direct support for Kings of Leon, Phantogram are excited to announce an extensive 2025 headline tour of North American, produced by Live Nation. The dates kick off January 15th in Las Vegas and include a stop at Brooklyn’s Paramount Theater on February 6 before concluding at Los Angeles, CA’s Hollywood Palladium on February 28. All dates are listed below. Tickets will be available starting with an artist presale beginning Monday, October 21. Additional pre-sales will run throughout the week ahead of the general onsale beginning Friday, October 25 at 10am local time. More information is here. Fans can also purchase VIP Packages, which may include premium tickets, a memorable experience with Phantogram in a fun and intimate setting, an exclusive VIP gift item & more. VIP package contents vary based on the offer selected. For more information, visit vipnation.com.
Lauded as an experimental and alternative band and one that’s never been married to a particular genre, Phantogram have continued to change the zeitgeist for almost a decade by consistently challenging it with their signature blend of hard-hitting beats, guitar driven dark psychedelia and electronic pop. The new songs – recorded with producer John Hill, alongside special collaborators like Mikky Ekko and Dan Wilson – weave together the band’s signature mix of hazy synths, hypnotic guitars, beat-crushing drum machines and mesmerizing vocals. For the band, writing the new music was their most exciting experience creating together since their early days as a band – a rebirth for the lifelong friends, creating music freely during the recording process. In addition to “Attaway,” the album release follows early album singles “Come Alive,” “Happy Again,” “All A Mystery,” and “It Wasn’t Meant To Be.”
Memory Of A Day marks the latest album in Phantogram’s illustrious body of work that includes Eyelid Movies (2010), Voices (2014), Three (2016) and Ceremony (2020). The duo have collaborated with legends such as Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Billy Corgan, The Flaming Lips and Miley Cyrus, partnered with Big Boi of Outkast to form supergroup Big Grams, headlined sold out shows worldwide, become a festival staple and toured with artists including The xx, Muse, M83, alt-J, Arcade Fire, Queens of the Stone Age and more. Since the arrival of Eyelid Movies, the duo has amassed over a billion streams, achieved a platinum-certified single, two gold-certified singles, and more.
ABOUT MEMORY OF A DAY
Sparked by a color or song that recalls the most joyful and tragic moments in your life, a sense memory vaults you into the distant past. These subtle triggers remind us that memory isn’t confined to the mind; it lives in the body, too. Phantogram’s fifth album, Memory of a Day, captures that disorienting sense of time travel. “We put these songs together as a capsule, thinking about how a certain sound or melody can bring you back instantly to a memory of a day,” Phantogram says.
While they were recording, the duo fixated on life calendars, a gridded sheet in which each unit represents a single week of a person’s life on the planet. As you fill in the grid, you witness the progression of your life in stark terms. The older you get, the darker the grid becomes, reminding you of how much time you have lived, and how little you may have left. “It’s this exploded view,” Phantogram says. “Like an image of Earth from a distance.” The life calendar is both morbid and nostalgic, a physical representation of our ephemeral time on Earth.
“Days are only numbers,” Sarah Barthel sings on the chorus of “Come Alive.” That lyric became a north star for the duo as they set forth to make Memory of a Day. At once heavy and ebullient, “Come Alive” distills the lasting impact Phantogram has made on popular culture. Since their 2010 debut, Eyelid Movies, Phantogram has been comparable to no one, futurists who still manage to stay ahead of the curve more than a decade into their career. Their genre-bending approach to pop has led them to work with everyone, from Big Boi, with whom they founded Big Grams, to Subtronics, Future Islands, Deftones, the Flaming Lips, Tom Morello, and Miley Cyrus, to name just a few. A festival staple across the globe, Phantogram has also toured with Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire, the XX, and many more. “We’ve always been proud of that: not being afraid of the experimental.”
Though their music has always been future-facing, to make Memory of a Day, Phantogram looked back. “Recording this album, it felt like how it did when we first started making music together,” Phantogram says. Alongside special collaborators like Mikky Ekko and Dan Wilson, Phantogram was joined in the studio by producer John Hill, who helmed Phantogram’s second album, Voices. The duo experimented in the studio and indulged in the music that brought them together in the beginning, artists such as J Dilla, Prince, Slowdive, and so much more. They reference new wave acts like the Talking Heads, ESG, and Liquid Liquid as influences on the percussive punk track “Feedback Invisible,” which is followed by the wistful burst of color “Attaway” – it’s a shoegaze song so sumptuous “you can almost see the grain in the guitar sounds.”
Phantogram think in images when they write, drawing on scenes from films that linger with them years on. “Ever since Eyelid Movies, our work has been visually driven,” Phantogram says. In the video for the fuzzed-out waltz “All a Mystery,” snippets of human lives coalesce into a montage of experience. “Erase all the tapes in my mind/ Throw them all away,” Barthel sings, accompanied by a bittersweet swell of synths. “Turn back the tables of time/ Let all those memories die.” A swirl of memories, both triumphant and tragic, surface on Memory of a Day. “Come Alive” was written after Barthel experienced a transformative live show on her own, while the title track recounts the moment Josh Carter had to put his dog down. “It’s what you wanted, but couldn’t say,” he sings. “I’m not afraid of dying or what it feels like”
The album’s penultimate track, “Happy Again,” is a thrumming, bass-heavy rock song with a chorus that sounds like a wave crashing against the sand. “Another empty summer sunset/ Feeling homesick,” Barthel sings ahead of the bridge, her voice catching on the breezy, luminous production. “Can you believe this is your life?” It’s a moment of realization Phantogram compares to the dour scene in Forrest Gump, where Lieutenant Dan, “mega depressed and drunk,” throws a bummer New Year’s Eve party. Still, the song ends with an enlivening mantra. “I can be happy again,” Barthel repeats as guitars careen and crash. If days are only numbers, then how else can a person measure a life? On “Ashes,” the answer seems to be in moments of resilience. Based on the adage “you came into this world alone and you’ll leave it alone,” the throbbing production infused with elements of trip hop, shoegaze and indie accompanies Barthel as she reminds the listener: “Ashes rise, ashes rise.”
When they penned the lyrics, Phantogram thought of the mythical phoenix spreading its wings after catastrophe to take flight. The vulnerable, even despairing moments on Memory of a Day are stark, but they’re buoyed by a relentless optimism that has driven this project from the outset. In the Los Angeles studio where they recorded Memory of a Day, Phantogram often marveled at the distance they’ve come, both physically and spiritually, since they first started making music together in a barn in Upstate New York. “Tomorrow never knows,” Barthel nods to the Beatles on “Come Alive.” The accumulation of days together tell a story bigger than any finite lifetime, and Phantogram’s life calendar is only a fraction full.
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