Raed Yassin – Phantom Orchestra 2LP

Crafted from solo recordings of 42 top-notch improviser musicians mostly drawn from Berlin’s multi-layered experimental scene, the monumental Phantom Orchestra project by Raed Yassin is finally getting released on Morphine Records. More than 1000 minutes of source material, recorded at the Morphine Raum during the fall of 2021, is distilled into a cogent work marked by a dazzling display of editing and blending, and packed into a double LP containing 7 “movements” of the Phantom Orchestra composition.
The Lebanese composer, musician and visual artist Raed Yassin has built a career straddling artistic mediums and communities, his devotion to improvisation, his connection to experimental electronic music, and his interest in the archive distinguishing a progressive impulse rooted in historic exploration. In 2020 Morphine Records released his wildly ambitious Live in Sharjah, made by a kaleidoscopic expansion of Praed, his duo with clarinetist Paed Conca. He resumes his interest in large-scale projects with Phantom Orchestra, conceived during the pandemic when most European improvisers were forced to redirect their energies into solo work,

Each set of the Phantom Orchestra’s solos was cut on a Dubplate, ready to be performed on 12 turntables routed to a six-channel setup, to create a unified and breathtaking composition from the spontaneous material. The resulting material was then edited and prepared to be cut on a Double LP format, marshalling a staggering variety of improvised footage into an air-tight collage that locates abstract consonance, stunning sonic rhymes, and unusual harmonies without shutting out the sort of exhilarating collisions and fraught tensions inherent in collaborative improvisations. With this final stage of the composition, Yassin offers a vibrant testimony to the diversity of Berlin’s community of improvisers, to say nothing of his own refined artistic sensibility in achieving such a remarkable feat of blending so many contrasting voices into a truly unified piece of music. “For me it’s about how to learn to be a community again,” he says.  “And how to  live in a world together again, which is a very difficult question for me.”

Tomomi Adachi: Voice, Electronics
Khyam Allami: Oud
Burkhard Beins : Amplified Cymbals, Floor Tom
Tony Buck: Drums, Percussion
Anthea Caddy: Cello
Lucio Capece: Slide Soprano Saxophone, Electronics
Audrey Chen: Voice, Synth
Paed Conca: Clarinet
Marina Cyrino: Amplified Flute
Marta De Pascalis: Synth, Tape loops
Axel Dörner: Trumpet
Mia Dyberg: Alto Saxophone
Tony Elieh: Electric Bass
Emilio Gordoa: Vibraphone
Judith Hamann: Cello
Carl Ludwig Hubsch: Tuba
JD Zazie: Turntables, CDJs
Elena Kakaliagou: French Horn
Mazen Kerbaj: Trumpet, Crackle Synth
Hans Koch: Soprano Saxophone
Matthias Koole: Guitar
Andrew Lafkas: Double Bass
Elisabetta Lanfredini: Voice, Tape Recorders
Maurice Louca: Microtonal Electric Guitar
Miya Masaoka: Dan Bau
Magda Mayas: Clavinet
Matthias Muche: Trombone
Andrea Neumann: Inside Piano
Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø: Trombone
Rieko Okuda: Piano
Andrea Parkins: Amplified Objects, Electronics
Jules Reidy: Acoustic Guitar
Ingrid Schmoliner: Prepared Piano
Marie Takahashi: Viola
Michael Thieke: Clarinet
Anaïs Tuerlinckx: Prepared Piano
Els Vandeweyer: Vibraphone
Michael Vorfeld: Percussion
Biliana Voutchkova: Violin, Voice
Uygur Vural: Cello
Ute Wassermann: Voice, Objects
Raed Yassin : Double Bass, Zithers, Objects

Solo sessions recorded at Morphine Raum in Berlin by Rabih Beaini and Emanuele Baratto in 2021.

Composition recorded and edited at Morphine Raum in Berlin by Rabih Beaini and Raed Yassin in 2024
Mixed by Rabih Beaini at Morphine Raum
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Liner notes by Peter Margasak
Designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio
Produced by Raed Yassin and Rabih Beaini

“This Album was published with the support of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – AFAC”