Name: Saru L-Qamar
Brand: A Lily

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

PHNTM41

Colour

Grey

Colour details

Marbled Grey

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2024-04-05

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

5053760109471

Total Cap

Grey LP

Artist

A Lily

Genre GB

Rest of World

Label GB

Phantom Limb

Phantom Limb is a music label based in Brighton, UK. Founded by James Vella, George Clift, Ken Li and Dean Wengrow, the label has become known for its diverse roster of talented artists and performers.

With a focus on quality and innovation, Phantom Limb strives to bring unique and captivating music to audiences worldwide. The label's dedication to nurturing emerging talent has led to the discovery of some of the most exciting acts in the industry.

From indie rock to electronic beats, Phantom Limb offers a wide range of genres that cater to all musical tastes. With their finger on the pulse of cutting-edge sounds, they consistently deliver groundbreaking releases that push boundaries and defy expectations.

Newest Listed Items

Phantom Limb boss and musician James Vella - aka A Lily - releases his first release for the label Saru l-Qamar, setting archival Maltese home recordings to new music for an album of nostalgic quasi-ambience and cross-generational dialogue.

From the 60’s until the modern era, it was common for Maltese families to receive reel tapes from relatives abroad. Maltese emigrés resettled in Australia, the UK, Canada etc. would record their news onto cassette - often in the form of għana, traditional Maltese song - and mail the tapes back home. Amazingly, through the superlative archival work of Malta’s nonprofit heritage foundation Magna Żmien, many of these tapes still exist. A Lily (Phantom Limb boss and musician James Vella, who is Maltese) was allowed access to Magna Żmien’s collection and in late 2022 began creating new musical works responding to these recordings. These works make up the oneiric bliss of new album Saru l-Qamar [Eng: They Became The Moon], his first release on his own label.

Arranged alongside hardware synthesis and “minimal DAW intervention”, the recordings take on ghostly, spiritual new qualities. Simple storytelling and news-sharing (“there was a burglar in the house yesterday”, “I can’t tell you how much I miss Malta”, “do your utmost to spend all your money at the feast”) become plaintive and evocative elegies for friends and family lost to time. “This is the meaning of the album title,” Vella writes. “Though these people have left us, they can never be truly forgotten, as without them we would not be here. They become part of the fabric of our lives, remaining forever and inexorably within the makeup of every subsequent generation. They have become the moon - always present, but always out of reach.” 

The music and track titles of Saru l-Qamar (pronounced: sarool-’amar) fill in the gaps between the stories, with Vella’s background as a fiction writer readily evident. Though the archival recordings come as snippets - often powerfully and profoundly revealing but rarely longer than a few minutes - through subtle processing and effects (“and a lot of audio cleaning”), Vella gently moulds these generationally personal insights into musical artefacts for arrangement alongside his pulsing, organic, enlivening synthesis. The work of mastering engineer Sean McCann (Recital Records, etc.) elevates the album’s sonics to shimmering heights of carefully balanced light and dark.

Saru L-Qamar

Music GB

Discover Saru L-Qamar by A Lily on Phantom Limb. Nostalgic quasi-ambience meets cross-generational dialogue in this album of Maltese home recordings set to new music. Vinyl records available.