The secretive Dylan Henner returns with his second EP of 2019, the “Carribbean ambient”-styled Stormbird Brother in the Dusk, featuring the steel pans of legendary Trinidadian musician (and Moshi Moshi artist) Fimber Bravo. Aligning with the raw stylistic materials of Caribbean music (as much Equiknoxx as Tapper Zukie), and recordings by masterful steel pan player Fimber Bravo, Henner set about creating a sparse, delicate, often beatless take on a music abundant with joyful sunshine and rhythm. The influence of Jon Hassell, Brian Eno and Popul Vuh (all listed within Henner’s favourite artists) combines strangely, savagely with dubby snares and arpeggiated steel pans, culminating in a style perhaps best described as “ambient-calypso-dub”. Opening track “It Started Raining but It Only Lasted A Short Time” sees Bravo’s playing take a central role, clanging with ecstasy over Henner’s characteristic reverberous synths and field recordings. Conversely, “Sunlight Came In Through The Blinds” treats the steel pan like a music box - sweetly drifting, lulling with nocturne bliss. Careful not to retread the same steps as his February 2019 debut A Reason For Living, this new EP sees Henner take his love of American minimalism, early ambient music and found-sound as a flexible rulebook. “I wanted to use my interest in ambient music - my modus operandi - like a traditional, black-and-white chessboard,” he writes. “So I could borrow wildly coloured chess pieces from a totally different place and have them play the same game in a new environment. The same rules, but with a new King and a new Queen and so on.” Steadfastly remaining within Henner’s soundworld - and still proving a crucial backbone to his music - are the field recordings taken from his travels in his day-job as a photographer’s assistant. Exploring with a handheld analogue synth and a field recorder (“no laptop!”) across seemingly endless destinations, Henner’s environmental recordings act like fertile fields onto which his compositions are sown. Unforthcoming on biographical details (“I prefer the music to speak for itself”), Henner initially contacted Phantom Limb through his friendship with Berlin-based producer Eomac. He does note that he plays tuned percussion, analogue synthesisers and cello. His music was featured in the BBC2 documentary Shadow Commander, a biopic of Iranian military leader Qassim Souleimani, and he has remixed Oliver Coates, Eomac, Fran & Flora, Prefuse73 and others. The artwork for the EP was created by Maltese designer and musician Leona Farrugia, based on photography by Dylan Henner.