A Buddhist Temple in Space: Peter Phippen & Eric "the" Taylor's Two by Twilight
by John Diliberto 8/29/2026
Peter Phippen and Eric “the” Taylor want to take you into a contemplative state. But this isn’t the kind of music found on countless cookie-cutter “Music for Meditation” albums. That’s not their intent at all. Two by Twilight takes you into a land of imagination.
Peter Phippen is well-known in the flute and New Age worlds. He first came to prominence in the mid-1990s playing Native American flutes, but he’s since expanded into a panoply of ancient instruments from around the world. Eric “the” Taylor is an electronic artist working in the ambient zone with groups including The Fragile Fate and Dark Sky Alliance. He most recently recorded with David Helpling.
Both artists live in a world that isn’t dominated by overt melody, repeated choruses, hooks or any kind of conventional song structure. Taylor orchestrates an abstract world of sound where rhythms may sometimes enter, but often the music floats free. That suits Phippen, who is a purely improvising musician. He doesn’t really play tunes, yet somehow remains melodic without actually executing a melody.
Two by Twilight opens a little deceptively with chimes and gently swirling synths on the title track. Phippen blows a shakuhachi across this electronic field that grows increasingly complex in its abstraction with random sounds oscillating in and out of the mix. It sets the stage for for a sound that will get increasingly intense which leads to “Let the Ghost Bleed,” On that track, Taylor releases surging synth chords that are organ-like with deep bass swoops that sound like a whale in slow motion. The way Phippen wraps his flute around them, it sounds almost cinematic, like an ambient battle hymn. This call to arms is really a call to the spirit, a concept that fuels much of Two by Twilight.
The title “A Thoughtful Approach” is appropriate because it may be the most melodically pre-conceived track on the album. It opens with a mysterious foreign voice before a drone and flute enter. Phippen’s flute creates a melodic outline that Taylor fills with reverb and synth reflections. Like much of Two by Twilight, the electronic landscape remains abstract until gentle percussion and a sequencer pattern emerge. Phippen traverses this world like a hawk surveying the terrain. There is an environmental feel to the record, except it’s nature on an alien planet where the biosphere is technological. “Fisherman’s Cove” sets up harbor ambience with what sounds like a boat’s propeller wandering in the distance. It sounds swampy as flutes, that could be both processed or synthesizers, move like snakes slithering through the water and into the underbrush. But again, nature goes alien as the synthesizers go Twilight Zone.
Some tracks can be gentle, like the idyll of “Feeling the Question Why.” Others almost get rhythmic, such as “Zuwara.” It begins with an Islamic chant recorded off a shortwave radio and phased, reminding me of the opening of “Master Builder” by Gong. The chant runs throughout the background of the track, including the last third, when taiko drums and a sequencer rhythm arrive and the music almost starts rocking. It’s like a psychedelic Buddhist temple sent into space.
Peter Phippen says he improvises everything. He walks into Taylor’s studio, listens to the tracks the electronic artist has created and just lets go. In that regard, he takes us on the same journey he’s on, exploring the sonorities and emotions of Taylor’s soundscapes.
By the time “Conceiver” reveals itself, you’ve been through an interior journey, but now the sun has started shining. Loosely based on a Javanese gamelan rhythm, it moves at the slow, stately pace you’d expect from the gentler side of gamelan music. Taylor deploys sparse metallophones on what turns out to be the brightest track on the album. You emerge into the light after a dark, introspective journey, and suddenly it feels like it’s all going to be okay.
The final track, “Century Folding Pt.1, is both a landing spot and a transition, possibly suggesting a second phase. Taylor’s soundscape is pure, if turbulent, drone zone with Phippen blowing low Shakuhachi calls. It gets very intense until the last moment when a kalimba comes in along with a high glissando and fades out into space.
As the album ends, you don’t wake up as if from a dream. You wake up into a world transformed, if only for a moment. Two by Twilight might strike some listeners as a meditative album, but this is music for meditators who think while they meditate.
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Hear our interview with Eric “the” Taylor & David Helpling
Hear our Interview with Eric “the” Taylor and Dark Sky Alliance