Audiopile Review: The long-running solo project of James Vella’s A Lily project, who has issued a handful of CDs and cassettes on several other labels, finally lands on his own imprint, Phantom Limb, a label which has been on a bit of a hot streak recently with notable albums released by Infinity Knives, Kevin Martin and Loraine James. The source material for Saru L-Qamar consist of decades old Maltese folk songs called għana, a very specific kind of song sent by Malta emigrés back to their homes that include updates of their new lives abroad. Vella, who is of Matlese descent, takes these ghostly vocals of the past and embeds them in his enchanting electronic scores. Largely ambient in tone, Vella goes from the Selected Ambient Works II-like submerged melodies of album opener “Żeżina Ddoqq is-Sħab”, to the Ghost Box adjacent crumbling and wavering tones of “Kemm Nixtieq Li Qed” and on to the dizzying cyclical melancholy of “Tħallinix”, connecting these various strands with a melancholic sympathy that’s somehow both nostalgic and otherworldly. Even without the vocals, this would have been a compelling contemporary ambient-IDM album. But these vocal samples, which are submerged and warped into smeary, distant calls, bring a haunted folkloric quality that makes for an utterly compelling full length. It brings to mind the smudged vocal samples used by Burial on his more ambient-focused work, or imagine the longing crackle of Caretaker given remix treatment by a Castle in Space alum. Incredible record. Big thanks to one of our regulars for tipping us off to this one.

James Vella is Maltese. This is important to know if you want to understand his album »Saru L-Qamar« on his label Phantom Limb. Over the eight tracks, he lets the voices of the Maltese diaspora have their say under the name A Lily. According to the press release, since the 1960s it’s been quite common for emigrants to use tape recorders to keep in touch with relatives left behind in Malta. They’d share their feelings, anecdotes and experiences of their new home.

James Vella has now gone through the archives of Magna Żmien, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving Maltese culture, and added digital voices to the recordings. Although you won’t understand a word unless you speak Maltese, the result is moving. On the opening track, there’s a kind of eerie familiarity between the auto-tuned voices and the synthetic pulsation of a guitar. Number two also dives into drama, exploring the alienation of voices in laments, combined with pompous synth runs and emotive bass lines, in the same way as cultivated by Innere Tueren from Leipzig in 2019. On track three, A Lily raises her voice to unimaginable heights, literally evoking associations with funerals. At the same time, sharp synths clatter, reminiscent of the sterility of Aïsha Devi. Many references and yet a sound all its own: »Saru L-Qamar« echoes strangely from the past.