Fickle Disc

10/9/99, Albany, NY, Pepsi Arena

Photo by mfdigiro from Reddit.

SET 1: Punch You in the Eye > Wilson, Guyute, Ghost -> Free, Sparkle > Possum

SET 2: Limb By Limb > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Down with Disease > Wading in the Velvet Sea, Simple, Loving Cup

ENCORE: Slave to the Traffic Light

Listen

The silver lining of Phish drifting away from their ambient style in Fall 99, at least for those of us in the Phish essay business, is that ambient is a very difficult style of music to write about. Ambient is my favorite flavor of Phish jamming – the late-night festival sets, 2024 included, consistently provide some of the most compelling music in their career – but describing what works and doesn’t work about it is always a challenge. Because the very nature of ambient music is to strip away all the familiar signifiers of song (and in Phish’s case, jam) structure, it cordons off a significant portion of my music writer vocabulary. 

By replacing the Siket Disc-inspired improv of summer with the TAB-inspired approach of fall – a style that is spacey, for sure, but not ambient to my ears – Phish helped me avoid wearing out words like “textural” and “atmospheric” over the last month. But this last mini-run of the tour features something of an ambient jamming revival, kicking off yesterday with that delightfully abstract Tweezer. That jam had me pounding the table, in a mindful Zen sort of way, because its minimalism was such a refreshing change of pace after a tour of hard grooves and guitar effect scribbling. But tonight’s show, by doubling down on Phish-style ambient, throws me back into difficult waters.

There’s two big jams tonight that qualify: the first set Ghost and the second set 2001. Both go past the 20-minute mark, both definitely rate as unique enough for jam chart designation. But one strikes me as excellent while the other one feels tedious, despite the two jams sharing a lot of strategy and sonics. Sorting out these different responses is tricky, but also probably meaningful as we head into a Phish era where my personal correlation between long and spacey jams and high quality is going to start to break down.

Ghost is the one that works for me. After a fairly typical first phase, the jam settles down for the last 9 minutes and gradually unravels – it’s a rare chance for me to dust off “entropy jamming” after hammering the concept into the ground last year. Like yesterday’s Tweezer, it’s not afraid to slow down its respiratory rate, and it develops by taking things away instead of piling on loops and keys. That leaves every element with enough elbow room to stand out, and not just Trey’s toys: Mike plays an ominous, stuttering heartbeat, Page is adding bent synth fly-bys, Fishman moves from a trip-hop breakbeat to whispering cymbals. As it mellows, Trey adds dabs of feedback and squiggly loops, garnishing the plate instead of stacking it high. Maybe it’s a weird jam for a first set in a high-octane Phish venue, but it’s the meeting of Siket Disc aesthetics and indoor show atmosphere I’d been hoping for all tour.

On the flip side, you have tonight’s 2001. It sure feels like an intentional attempt to recapture the masterpiece of Memphis, not to mention the free-floating mood of the first set’s Ghost. But perhaps due to a wobbly start out of Limb By Limb – not as natural a lead-in as Memphis’ Jibboo – it never comes close to its predecessor’s expertly layered chaos. With the heavy caveat that it could just be the AUD vs. SBD difference, whatever Trey’s cooking up in his loops-and-keys laboratory is either inaudible or unimpressive, and we’re back to the other three just treading water while they wait for something constructive to emerge from stage left. The crowd around the taper gets chatty, the 12 minutes to the first peak feel like forever…and not in a good way. Only when Mike takes over for the second round does this 2001 achieve (mild) lift-off.

So what’s the difference between the Ghost and the 2001? What makes the first a worthy Phish tribute to Brian Eno, and the second the kind of jam that has me checking my watch? It’s hard to say, beyond some hand-waving about band communication or the distraction of Trey’s new squeaky-toy synthesizer. It’s much easier to identify when a performance of a fussy early track trips over its feet, or when the band is rushing jams to contrived peaks instead of letting them develop organically. 

And I don’t just think it’s a critic problem – the thin line between bliss and boredom in a minimalist jam is likely why there are fifty times more Phish shows where they decide to just play fast and loud. It takes a well-calibrated compass to successfully navigate ambient waters in front of a live arena audience. And while Phish’s concert instincts are second to none, they’re headed for a stretch where those senses aren’t as sharp, leading to jams that aren’t quite right in a way that’s hard to put a finger on.