- Words by Jon I. Gill -


The closest some artists come to creating reflections of themselves is a smoking mirror. Clues of their essence may portrude through the fog, but the soul proxied by the images fawned over by bloggers and fans remains faint. But then there are those writers of life that set texts to breakbeats and forge the most unobstruced mirrors in the universe. This is what Phantom Thrett reveals in ENIGMA. To hear the notes, raps, and production is to relish in the rollercoaster of joy, pain, originality, doubt, and resolve. ENIGMA is the world not as we want it to be, but the solace in passionately experiencing with open hearts and hands what cannot be undone. And the ENIGMA is many times in plain view but unobserved, except for those trained in the rituals of the secret society.

Driving the car forward from the Electric Feelings release (May 2021), the prolific Phantom Thrett moves into territory even uncharted for him, as the recorded sound lab lives up to its mysterious name from the first track. "The Breath" shows Thrett breaking bars too small for the substance he encodes, calling for "...a Crime Mob Smashing Pumkins collab 2079 Cadillac spaceship" all the while weaving superior rhyme skills amidst cryptic tales of personal lessons. The album smootly dives into a fuzzy requiem of of a past hurricane flame in "Square Zero," with the ENIGMA declaring through a Jimi Hendrix Experience-esque vocal tone that he'll never return to the abyss. A similar acidic aesthetic is also the sorcery of "Clipped Wings," and a different spell is cast in "Beacon," a 1:23 second soulish vintage mood revealing that a broken passion is not a emotionless idol but a moving symbol that is "...a beacon of light, just in case...just in case you can't find your way home." "Kaleidoscopes" feat. Adam et. el hosts the album's only guest appearance, as the two immerse the listener modern ancient life wisdom over an upbeat Harlem Renaissance breakbeat step, encourging us to engage the permanence of impermanence as the inevitable dance of the cosmos. If you're "...sick of same song, chance the station and get your soul fed," as Adam would chide us. "Freedom," a play run right from the essence of the ENIGMA, points us toward the boxes we're told reality must reside in and takes a sledgehammer to them, as the boxes breed repercussions and "...freedom is when consequences don't matter at all. "Embers" serves as the only track not prodced by Phantom Thrett, and relays a renouncing of attachments the Buddha would teach as he scatters a discussion about fixed beauty, a stock sure to lose your investment every time. The extremely personal and totally sung "Family Matters" opens the chest cavity with a machete and a microscope and investigates the trees that our progenitors plant and water but are surprised grow into the strongest mahogany in the jungle. The human creators of the committed artist are many times unsatisfied with their existential situations, but the Jedi dedicates to the life Force that interconnects and is all, regardless of the parental gaze. ENIGMA ends beatufully with an upbeat and freshly airy manifesto on the self being that which one must be true to, as this is the movement "uphill" toward liberation emerges from such auto-authenticity.

ENIGMA presents a uncanny soundscape and approach of daring ideas, adds onto an existing legacy of Thrett's audio excellence, and illustrates that humans are only conduits through whom events pass and cannot be held. Once again, we're forced to confront the imperative of "The Breath" to "Imagine the IE without Phantom." Within the realm of possibility, this one isn't among its annals.