Phantom Brickworks

“Capel Celyn” takes its name from the Gwynedd community that was deliberately flooded in 1965 to make a reservoir, and most of the other titles on Phantom Brickworks also name places in Britain. Stephen Wilkinson built the pieces over more than ten years with a microphone and a loop pedal, using short loops of piano, synthesiser and guitar alongside tape hiss and field recordings.

It was Bibio’s first entirely ambient release, issued by Warp. Wilkinson described the music as a mental portal into real and imagined settings, shaped by the idea that places can be haunted by meaning. The title piece returns in three parts across the sequence, while “Capel Bethania” recalls a chapel in Aberdare demolished in 1991.