Welcome to another article, dear reader. Like you, I was also lured to this release by Anthony Phillips’s well-known name, but what exactly is it? Let’s break it down.
First of all, you have to discover the Ant Band, who describe themselves as “A musical collective from all over Germany. Not a tribute band, but focuses on the work of Anthony Phillips.” They were founded in February 2021 and have released three albums to date, covering his stuff and drawing inspiration from it.
One of the Ant Band’s members, Gereon Schoplick, was in touch with Vera Osina, a Russian-born pianist based in Kassel, Germany. In the liner notes, she admits she had not heard Phillips’s music before, but was interested in the project as it was different to her classically-trained background.
The result was a 55-minute performance at the Piano Festival in Bad Wildungen on 22nd February 2026, with selections from across Phillips’s illustrious career. As the title of the album suggests, the bulk of this performance features songs selected from Ivory Moon, his 1986 album dedicated to piano pieces, which was reissued in the Private Parts & Pieces V-VIII package. Although I enjoyed those pieces at the time, they have not remained in my memory, and this live performance felt like a revelation. Hearing such spirited and faithful performances of the Sea-Dogs Motoring suite and Moonfall showed me how much Schoplick and Osina must care about this music.
But Osina actually begins the performance with a song that is probably much better known, as it appears on the highly regarded The Geese and the Ghost: the closing track, Sleepfall: The Geese Fly West. I guess I rarely made it all the way through that album, as it was also unfamiliar, but certainly a calm, relaxing way to begin the event. The 16-second audience applause at the start of the track is rather loud, but I’ll allow it because Osina reportedly requested that her small audience not applaud between pieces to maintain the flow of the performance. The dutiful audience obeyed, and as a result, the listener gets a solid 50 minutes of serene piano music, ideal for relaxing or concentrating, unmarred by loud claps.
Another revelation was Rapids. Also taken from Ivory Moon, Osina leans into the ‘rapid’ part of the song, increasing the tempo for a technical performance that feels very proggy, for want of a better word. I surely would have remembered something like this? When I went back to Phillips’s original performance, I discovered that he hadn’t played this section nearly as fast, and thus did not have the excitement factor it does here. As a result, Osina’s rendition is nearly two minutes shorter than the original. In the liner notes, Phillips was also impressed by Osina’s playing, complimenting her superior technical skill and noting that “her superb technique gives life, colour and movement lacking in the original!” He’s being a bit self-deprecating here, but I would agree that Rapids definitely made more of an impression on this release.
The highlight of the set, though, is undoubtedly Slow Dance, the one Anthony Phillips piece I know extremely well from years of repeated listening. As brilliant as anything Mike Oldfield ever wrote (if not quite as well-produced), Slow Dance, Pt. 1 has seen me through many work and cleaning sessions and is my go-to track when I need to tune out the noise. Phillips’s careful, restrained and subtle exploration of themes is a beautiful, poignant adventure in music and one of the best 24-minute pieces ever composed. As soon as I saw it on the tracklist for this set, I knew I had to rush to review it.
When Osina plays the opening chords (which were synthesised on the original), the recognition is instant. I was truly astonished at how great the suite sounded on a grand piano, losing none of its charm and perhaps only a little of its quirkiness. Through lightly abridged sections and a brisker pace overall, Osina shortens the track by 9 minutes while losing very little of the original composition; I really struggled to find where she’d cut corners. I still struggle to believe that she wasn’t a fan beforehand, as she plays the music with such passion and depth: the mark of a true professional. I was very impressed that the audience didn’t break out into cheers when she reached the end of the suite, which I noticed she played much faster than the original, the only reinterpretation I wasn’t particularly fond of. Had I been in the audience, I’m not sure I’d be able to help myself.
But there was still time for one more piece, the more recently composed Gemini, which premiered in 2018 but had its studio debut just last month on Phillips’s album of the same name. I suppose Schoplick wished to feature songs spanning his entire career. It’s a nice, but forgettable postlude after the majesty of Slow Dance.
After sitting quietly for so long, the audience was finally permitted to applaud, and applaud they did. But can somebody explain why we have to listen to all 110 seconds of it? The clapping is especially loud and harsh on the ear, especially after the soft tones of the piano. A few seconds of applause on a live album are fine, but this was a mistake; the editor should have definitely cut it down.
Ironically, the encore piece, Fivers (taken from 1999’s Private Parts & Pieces X – Soirée), is much shorter than the amount of clapping you have to sit through: as played by Osina, the odd-metered track is only 64 seconds long, followed by another 50 seconds of clapping. I was absolutely fuming by this point, and even more thankful that Osina had requested no clapping for the main performance.
Applause aside, this is a really fantastic album if you want to discover (or perhaps rediscover) the work of this prolific artist. Let’s face it, Anthony Phillips is not a mainstream musician, and a lot of the pieces in this performance are pretty obscure, even amongst fans. And yet, it’s comforting to know that there are others out there that are so passionate about the music that they want to learn it, play it and continue its legacy. The performance of Slow Dance is worth the price of admission alone.
And look, I managed to get through the whole review without saying the ‘G’ word.
TRACK LISTING
01. Sleepfall: The Geese Fly West (4:33)
02. Sea-Dogs Motoring – I. Sunrise Over Sienna (3:14)
03. Sea-Dogs Motoring – II. Basking Shark (4:33)
04. Sea-Dogs Motoring – III. Sea-Dogs’ Air (2:31)
05. Sea-Dogs Motoring – IV. Safe Havens (1:24)
06. Rapids (6:46)
07. Moonfall (from ‘Masquerade’) (4:20)
08. Autumnal (5:10)
09. Slow Dance – Movement I (3:28)
10. Slow Dance – Movement II (2:43)
11. Slow Dance – Movement III (3:16)
12. Slow Dance – Movement IV (5:50)
13. Gemini (5:10)
14. Fivers (encore) (1:56)
Total Time – 54:44
MUSICIANS
Vera Osina – Grand Piano
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: TM Productions | UND-TON Tonträgerproduktion
Country of Origin: Russia/Germany
Date of Release: 29th May 2026
LINKS
The Ant Band – Bandcamp | YouTube | Instagram (Vera Osina)
Anthony Phillips – Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube
