The Phantom Limb sound is an indefinable blend of classic southern soul and country blues. Their honest, melancholic, Bristolian edge creates one of the most original and compelling new propositions of recent years.
You only get two tracks to impress the notoriously choosy selectors from Austin Texas. Get past three panels and you're into the prestigious showcase that is South By South West. They loved Phantom Limb's demo in Austin - ‘they undoubtedly belong in the Deep South' - so they got to play at the 2008 festival. Also by chance one of the Glastonbury stage managers came across the band at a small gig In Bristol, he brought the booker down to a further gig, and they were promptly offered a slot on the Jazz World Stage this year. Not bad for a band from Bristol, UK, that only a year before nearly folded when the singer lost her voice.
Phantom Limb is a band that shouldn't be. A collection of seriously experienced musicians doing something they never did before, something so out of time that it's just right. It's a musical hunch that bucks the logic and comes up trumps just because of that. It's the itch in a leg that isn't there but seriously demands to be scratched. Yet again it seems that the Bristol melting pot has thrown up something truly original yet strangely familiar.
The Phantom Limb sound is an indefinable blend of classic southern soul and country blues. They blend modern song writing and rich acoustic music with powerful gospel-inflected vocals. Already comparisons are being made to Mavis Staples, Aretha Franklin and The Band
The band started when a group of musician friends in Bristol got together for a jam. As a Christmas present to themselves, they decided to go to the studio and record the results. It was an egg-nog fuelled session in December 2004 and only afterwards did it dawn on them that this should be a band, Busy though they were, they began to find time to put together some songs and an album was formed, by late '06 they were back in the studio recording. Then disastrous illness struck vocalist Yolanda Quartey, preventing her singing indefinitely, and it looked like it might be all over.
The album (and the band) stayed on ice for over six months while she recovered her voice and then it seemed a good idea to start quietly with acoustic rehearsals. These proved revelatory as a more intimate yet powerful sound emerged, electric guitars where swapped for acoustics and double bass was brought in, Yolandas voice was really allowed to soar and beautiful country-gospel songs emerged. It was a whole new start - the recording process began all over again and Phantom Limb was reborn. Almost by happenstance they'd discovered a strand of raw 60s Southern soul for the new millennium and subsequent gigs around Bristol have shown there's a real appetite for it. Now they are launching on a national scale with a string of major festival appearances through out the summer, it seems that the Phantom Limb is really there, after all.