Phantom Islands

Phantom Islands (formerly known as Makropsyas) is an improvising chamber ensemble founded by Mat Muntz in 2021. Centered around the primorski meh (a traditional bagpipe from the Croatian coast), compositions for the ensemble seek to integrate the instrument’s unique idiomatic and organological properties within a context of contemporary improvisation and microtonality.

Phantom Islands is:
Pablo O’Connell - oboe
Yuma Uesaka - clarinets
Xavier Del Castillo - saxophone
Alec Goldfarb - guitars
Michael Larocca - percussion
Mat Muntz - primorski meh, contrabass, composition

A little more about the project…

This is a fruit of my bizarro-bagpipe labor over the past 2 years. The meh, which I’ve described in the past as “a wheezing squawking singing sack of sounds of joy” is an utterly strange and unique instrument whose secrets I have worked to uncover (as documented on my instagram). I have taken some of what I’ve learned in this process and combined it with an ensemble of some of my favorite improvisers:
Pablo O’Connell on oboe, Yuma Uesaka on clarinets, Xavier Del Castillo on tenor sax, Alec Goldfarb on various microtonal guitars, and Michael Larocca on percussion.

I imagine the music as a set of two interlocking, programmatic suites, divided by an intermezzo dance piece. Both suites have maritime themes (I wrote all this on an island, after all), and depict dangerous sea voyages - one real, and one mythological. In addition, each suite uses a folk song from the village of Orlec on the island of Cres, Croatia as source material, put through various interpretive lenses. Orlec Malo Selo (“Orlec, little village”) is presented as a lurching Mingusian shout chorus, and Jubi Pero Dušo (“kiss me, dear Pero”, whose lyrics are way darker than the title implies) appears as a ghostly refrain in different microtonal tunings. I’d like to thank Dario Kučić, Mario Mužić, and Astrid Kuljanic for their help, encouragement, and local knowledge, which were invaluable in realizing this music.

This project was made possible by New York City Artist Corps