After a tremendous label in-store session at Muting the Noise Sol Eterno is readying its latest release by Halle based artist Philipp Harms. Being a co-label head himself Philipp exchanges his beloved Empore Music home to add a three tracker to Braunbeck and Hazel’s aspiring Sol Eterno. ‘Baguio’, named after the same city on the Philippines, combines both: ‘sol’ and soul. All of the EP’s tracks are built around warm synth chords that cover dreamy yet forward-going features and mentally invite its listeners to the paradise south of the equator even when being thousands of miles away. ‘Nøkk’, the third track of the EP, perfectly combines the aforementioned features. A seemingly warm piano melody marks the track’s evident characteristic but is carried by darker synth-chords and a decent bass line that leave enough space for the former to influence the listener’s mind and mood. It’s the harmonic dichotomy that Philipp accomplishes with this concinnity – in neat manner just as if the water spirits of German mythology played their songs to their audience.
The second track of Charles Bronson resident Philipp Harms on his ‘Baguio EP’ is called ‘sPace’ and does respectively features exactly the characteristics the track name suggests. Starting off with an out of space male vocal, which is periodically recuring throughout the track, it’s the bass line that sets the pace and base of the track. With cosmic chords creating a musical hyperloop the track takes on the journey through time and space. ‘sPace’ is Philipp’s most club-oriented take of the EP and touches down in the base of one’s fear when being in orbit, but at the same time depicts that it’s this moment when beauty can appear. So what’s left is to ask: ‘Houston can-can-can you hear?’
Philipp Harms’ track ‘Baguio’ is the last track of the Torture the Artist EP exclusive but foremost the EP’s name giving track. The track name, deriving from the a city on the Philippines, combines features from ‘sPace’ and ‘Nøkk’ but hits closer to the ‘sol’. Heart-warming arpeggios set the base of ‘Baguio’ and introduce its listeners to the mental state of well-being. The latter is emphasized even more when Philipp adds a clap in the course of his soul-thrilling composition and announces the upcoming break. The wandering ‘sol’ goes down and the listener witnesses the beauty of this musical sunset softly pushed by the last ray of strings.
Philipp Harms’ EP ‘Baguio‘ will be released on Sol Eterno March 1st, 2019.
Torture the Artist 