The Phantom Menaces
The Phantom Menaces
As Long Distance Calling fearlessly venture into The Phantom Void, their first new album in four years, drummer Janosch Rathmer talks to Prog about their enduring love of melancholic music, the importance of playing at 90%, being inspired by an old wizard, and bringing fans to tears in China.
Words: David West
LDC, L-R: David Jordan, Jan Hoffmann, Janosch Rathmer, Florian Füntmann.
Images: Andre/Stephan/earMUSIC
“This year is our 20th anniversary, so it’s been a while,” says Long Distance Calling drummer Janosch Rathmer. Two decades in, there’s no sign of the German prog and post-rockers losing their passion or creative ingenuity. Since Satellite Bay landed in 2007, Rathmer, bassist Jan Hoffmann and guitarists David Jordan and Florian Füntmann have released an album every two years, regular as finely tuned clockwork. Then in a break from habit and tradition, four years passed between the release of Eraser in 2022 and the materialisation of their ninth studio album, The Phantom Void. The gap wasn’t the result of the quartet falling out or losing their mojo; rather it gave everyone time to breathe and return to LDC renewed and refocused. The result is perhaps their heaviest and leanest record to date – and, dare we say, their best? “That’s always the expectation, that the next record is maybe your best record,” says Rathmer. “We needed the break; I think it was a good decision to have this gap of four years.