From Ghost Stories to the Present Tense: Peering Into Phantasia

From the candlelit shadows of their 2019 demo cassette to the haunted pop reveries of 2022's debut LP Ghost Stories, New York City's Phantasia have carved out a sound equal parts spectral and striking. Led by Tara Atefi (vox), Grace Scott (guitar), Emma Hendry (keyboard), Reggie McCafferty (bass), and Dylan Cameron (drums), Phantasia casts a spell on late-night wanderings and melodic, tortured-romantic confessions with peeling guitar lines and otherworldly keyboards into a hallucinatory pop haze. While the group's most recent singles "Anonymous" and "Pistol" hint at their forthcoming second full-length, they also stand at a turning point that's wider in scope, deeper in vision, and still impossible to pin down. Quite possibly NYC's most truly psychedelic group in ages. We've been fortunate enough to talk with the band who reflect on their beginnings, chaotic tales, and the trials behind their next chapter.

Hot Sounds: So what's been happening with Phantasia since the Ghost Stories LP?

Grace Scott: I like to think we’ve been slowly and consistently chugging away. We spent the first six months after the record came out just gigging, and then it was pretty much back to writing new material. We write collectively, with everyone deciding their own — and sometimes each other's — parts, so it’s not always speedy.

HS: How exactly did you all meet and when did you form Phantasia? 

GS: Broadly speaking, we've all basically known each other for over a decade through DIY punk.

Emma Hendry: Grace and I met at 538, and wanted to start a band inspired by Television Personalities. Dylan was a good friend of both of us and seemed like an obvious choice for drums. A little later on Grace brought Gary into the mix to play bass. 

GS: We probably played together for about four months before Tara joined. Tara and I have the same birthday and that year we had a joint karaoke birthday party in the Lower East Side — although we didn't even know each other that well at the time. Tara sang "Con Te Partiro" by Andrea Bocelli and killed it and we were like hmm… maybe she’d want to sing in our band! Now I can’t imagine the band in any way without her in it, she cemented the project’s identity. In 2023, Gary moved to L.A., and our really good friend Reggie took over on bass.

HS: What's been some of the highlights with the group over the years? Any untold tales? 

Tara Atefi: My favorite story is about how Dylan got shingles and we had to get Corey Rose to drum for some of the recording of Ghost Stories with like two days' notice. Chaotic times!

Dylan Cameron: I got shingles twice that year, it sucked, and then I got Covid and had to bail on a string of dates. Honestly the best thing to come out of it was that Corey stepped in in the clutch to finish a bunch of songs on that record and absolutely crushed.

GS: We have a funny family band tendency. Even before that shit, Dylan broke his collar bone stage diving in Austin, so Emma’s sister Sophie played drums at a practice; and Ben Cook played drums at practice. The aforementioned Corey heroics which included playing a show in Philly with us on one day’s notice because Dylan had Covid. Our friend Craig who has a band called Motorists filled in for some shows in the spring when Reggie was out of town. We use a lot of Brower’s gear. It takes a village!

HS: What can you tell me about this new batch of songs you've been working on, particularly this new single "Anonymous"?  

EH: Before we had vocals for it, I had named the song "Prairie Blue." That was because the day I initially recorded the demo version, I went to a prairie, which is an endangered ecosystem in Washington where I live now. And then we called it "Cranberries" for a while because it sounds kind of like a Cranberries song when we sped it up. Now it's called "Anonymous" and I think the vocal melody Tara added really makes the song.

DC: It’s our sad sexy era.

HS: What's the story behind last month's single + video "Pistol"? 

TA: The song came together pretty effortlessly and I really wanted to put a visual to it. I wrote a script for it and showed it to Emma Penrose who is an amazing NYC cinematographer and has worked on some iconic videos. She really helped bring the vision together.

GS: We are working towards this full length album but we are also antsy and we thought fuck it let’s just start putting some music out while we finish. Tara felt really connected to this song so we pushed to have it finished first so she could create a video for it.

HS: Both of these tunes will be included on your second LP which I hear is 70% finished. What can you tell readers about this new album and what has the experience been like so far working on it?

DC: This is by far the longest we’ve ever spent writing. I think we’ve all had to learn a bit of patience. Our writing process has always been collaborative and I think that process takes longer making sure we’re all 100% behind it.

GS: Horizontalism has been both our strength and our curse.

HS: Looking back at your previous releases, how do you feel this new one compares both sonically and thematically? What have you learned or discovered in the process of creating this new record that feels like a departure or evolution from your previous work?

Reggie McCafferty: I’m in the band now.

GS: I think we’re learning to be more comfortable with being macro vs as stripped down as we had been in the past. This is definitely not a "live off the floor" sort of album. I think we are also discovering that when people have full time jobs it takes a fucking long time to make a record even though it’s like all we ever think about.

HS: What are some memories you have looking back on the creation of Ghost Stories and the 2019 demo tape?  What's it like hearing those again and are there any tracks that still stick out to you?

GS: When I heard Tara sing the lyrics for "Rotten" for the first time in the studio I started tearing up because it felt like a really poignant letter to someone she cared about. When I put the guitar to "LeftOverYou" when we were fleshing it out, Emma started crying for some reason. We're a crier band! I love "Residue" — I think that song is underrated!

TA: Creating both the demo and Ghost Stories was incredibly challenging vocally. I would make weird maps of the vibes I’d want to bring to the songs. "Rotten" off of our demo I think my note bubble for it said, "Systematic Death" by Crass vs The Only Ones vocal tones but make it pretty." I’d pull most of my vocal influences from nothing that sounds like our band but tried really hard to make it make sense.

HS: I've always really dug the artwork to your records. Who handles that and where does the inspiration mostly come from? Also what can you hint at with the artwork to this new album?

DC: Tara, Emma and I are all visual artists so it’s always been a collaborative effort. On Ghost Stories, I kind of took the lead on art direction. I was working lots with crayon, trying to piece together things that I felt resonated with some of the themes on that record. I love Gretchen Bender. She was a part of the pictures generation of artists in the '80s. I think some of my inclination to borrow and mimic from media is inspired by her. Lately Tara has taken the lead. She has a super strong vision for the material so I’ve just been trying to help out with some of the decision making where needed. The music video for "Pistol" feels like a painting or a sculpture to me, it was incredible to watch it all come together under her direction.

HS: You'll also be touring Europe later in the fall. What do you look forward to most playing these newer songs live? How's the approach different (or the same) live?

GS: I use distortion pedals now.

HS: In any way, do you feel like outliers to the whole New York music scene?

TA: I wouldn't call us outliers. Technically we are genre conflicted but that’s because we take inspo from a lot of different sources.

GS: I feel like the inspiring thing about NYC punk at least has been seeing people take a lot of artistic risks — visually and musically — over the years. Sonically we don’t necessarily sound like a lot of our friends' bands so sometimes we’re a bit of an outlier on a bill, but I feel like everyone has always been really supportive.

HS: Lastly, any advice or last words you'd like to share with our readers?

DC: Always read the instructions at least once.