With the literary inspired albums "Island Noises" (2011) and "A Day In June" (2013), the German band around singer Philip Griffiths, son of the Beggars-Opera legend Martin Griffiths, and keyboarder Philipp Jaehne increasingly developed from an ambient formation to a prog and art rock band. Four years ago, PGM had set themselves the difficult task of making absence tangible in terms of sound. Now, on their new concept album "Here Now", they think about the quality of the moment. Guitarist Stefan Glomb gives information.
eclipsed: What's "Here Now" about?
Stefan Glomb: It's the counterpart to "Absence", because it's no longer about absence, but the opposite, the here and now, which we play through in different facets, just like its predecessor. "Absence" emphasizes the transience of the moment, "Here Now" now emphasizes the ever-present of the same moment. Two sides of the same coin.
eclipsed: The cover with the woman doing a handstand on the beach stands for the theme of living in the moment. It is a challenging ideal in every meditation to free the mind for the pure experience of the present.
Glomb: It's not so much about philosophy as it is about life-worldly aspects of temporality: How do I perceive the here and now, and what role does my attitude towards past and future play in this? The title track is about someone who wants to ignore both and only live in the present, which of course doesn't work that way either. Serendipity" is about the happy coincidence that happens to you in the present and that you cannot foresee or plan for.
eclipsed: And "Note From My Younger Self" and the suite "The Garden"?
Glomb: Note" is about a topic that plays a role for us again and again and is also taken up again at the end in "This Place": the timeless personal identity, still not philosophical (laughs). It is the question of how our former selves differ from our present self, which of course is also connected with decisions and alternative, unrealized life plans. "The Garden'" relates the whole thing to the big story: How does it feel to be in the here and now in a historical place, in exactly the same place where "great" personalities used to live?
