Phone Home

This is something between chillwave, dreampop, instrumental dance pop and other danceable pop genres you can imagine mixed with some spacy post rock (or whatever) tunes as well as also classical elements, created by two brothers from New York. Seems to be a great mixture. - Dying For Bad Music

This wonderfully relaxing EP from NYC instrumental 2-piece 'Phone Home'? hit my inbox this morning and it is exactly what I needed on a Monday. Download the album for whatever price you see fit. Lots of information and links there as well. - Tons More Cowbell

Ando horrible con esta hueá de las peticiones de discos. Sorry a todos los que mandan sus discos para ser posteados, ando en otra. Como que he descuidado un poco el blog, pero están leyendo esto, así que no está del todo muerto. En fin.

Post-rock algo minimalista. Digo "algo" porque no es del todo, le meten color los cabros de repente. Formado por dos hermanos, el grupo es simplemente una batería y un teclado. Lo mejor es que hacen maravillas. De hecho, me emociono un poco venir y postear este disco, está muy grabado (suena muy limpio, aunque no sé si es por los pocos instrumentos o bla bla bla) y las canciones son a toda raja (están muy bien interpretadas, logran un buen climax sin saturarlo mucho). El disco dura como 15 minutos, así que bájenlo (gratis del BandCamp).

Crítica de siempre: a la portada le falta un poco más de trabajo, pero es lo de menos, si nos vamos a poner a criticar la música. Igual, a veces bajas el disco por la portada. No es menor si consideramos eso (al menos yo lo hago siempre) - 42 Is The Sense Of Life

Here's the super-nice, chill as fuck "debut of the Vallarelli brothers of suburban and urban New York." The Michael of the bros is on synths + keys, while the John is on the kit, and together they Phone Home and yell like a much bigger band. Seems like enjoying punk rawk is a requirement for all things Cephalochromoscope. They do that too, irrelevantly.

Fairly difficult to tag (/unnecessarily pigeonhole), contrasting the minimalist number of band members, the music (and Michael said this himself) is maximalist and (this say I: it is also) properly flowin'. "Rich piano harmonies, warm synth washes and relentlessly driving percussion," seals the whole descriptive part of the deal, really. Unlike shitloads upon shitloads of generic, cold, empty post-rock bands, these two dudes pull off a warmth that makes one want to roast a bunch of chestnuts and be extra nice to his/her mom for the rest of the evening. The non-threatening shouting (it's how it feels when friends yell greetings at you) on "Cozy Attack" reminds me of a most excellent French post-rock duo, John Makay (those two are more classically drums + guitar based, but just as awesome). Is there like an awesome band that pulls more of this sort of stuff (with determined yelling, howling, shouting) off that I've not yet heard of? Sweet stuff, really. - Cephalochromoscope

“Meds” is a morning-time wake-up call, gently easing you into your day. Composed and performed by the two-piece NYC band Phone Home, the song is an amalgamation, a gentle mash of comforting synths and driving force jazz-influenced percussion. In the confusing haze of “chillwave,” this song stands out for its defiance of that. With simple grace, the song stays away from a cutesy 80s sound, and the piano’s affect is not totally unlike that of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” - Microphone Memory Emotion

Phone Home, a local NYC two-piece band consisting of brothers Michael & John Vallarelli, serve up whimsical keyboards & percussion with punches of serious excitement sprinkled throughout. After listening, my weird brain immediately thought to itself, "WHOA, this is totally what it would sound like if Jupiter met Earth"...you know, some sort of epic collision of worlds with monster highs and soft tempo lows. OK, judge me. I just can't get the whole E.T. thing out of my head.


- Doors At 7

Phone Home are an Instrumental, Post Rock band made up of brothers [ John Vallerelli ] and [ Michael Vallerelli ] from New York.

John Vallarelli – Drums
Michael Vallarelli – Synths and Keys

Additional Info

Produced by Phone Home and Matt Labozza
Recorded by Matt Labozza at Vanity Sound
Mixed and Mastered by Matt Labozza
Additional Instrumentation and Programming by Matt Labozza
Cover Art by Rocman Design

~~~~~~~~~ ( I’ll be honest here, majority of my post are sound carried over from TSSF, if not then my gmail inbox but some of the stuff like [ Phone Home ] ~ [ the Widest Smiling Faces ] and few more are sound I have no clue from where and how, they landed on my desktop. And the thing is… each and everyone one of them… I just open ~ listen and instantly fall in love with. Well not that I’m complaining though.

Very little info on [ Phone Home ] but do check out the preview below and do not skip this self title. [ Phone Home ] is SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL. Sound that I can only wish for more. - The Siren Sound

Phone Home are a brotherly duo from New York City. They have just released a self-titled EP that showcases the Vallarelli bros' penchant for instrumental pop. Its warm and sunny, simplistic yet elegaic - imagine if PVT had a more timid, introverted younger brother with dreams of adulation, their eyes fervently drawn to the sun as it hits the leaves of autumn. That is Phone Home. - Sonic Masala

I always get a little nervous when a band lists a wide range of influences, especially when it’s stuff I like. It’s pretty rare when their music turns out to be good. Phone Home’s self-titled EP is good, extremely good in fact. The Vallarelli brothers have put together 4 tracks of extremely solid indie rock and ambient fusion; equal component parts krautrock, early-00's indie rock like the Walkmen and spacey, vocal-less ambient. Phone Home’s music also sounds like a logical continuation of the experimental and indie rock bands that are their NYC legacy; you can hear influences of no wave bands, Sonic Youth and the aforementioned turn of the century indie bands. The Vallerllis manage to balance this different elements effortlessly that on some level I feel it does their music a disservice to talk about their influences; this is a really organic sound.

Phone Home’s self titled EP is availble on the their Bandcamp site. You can download it for free, but I’m telling you that you should pay something for it; it’s worth it.

- To Eleven

The latest track to be added to FatCat's ever-expanding library of great demos, sent to our office or to our SoundCloud, is called "Two is a Crew" by Phone Home. Phone Home is helmed by the Vallarelli brothers, two New Yorkers Michael and John, and together they whip up a driving, keyboard-and-drum led maelstrom - especially on this track, 'Two is a Crew', which also has a star-gazing, almost ambient quality that suits their name's loving nod to ET.

Phone Home are a relatively new band - they released their debut, self-titled EP on their Bandcamp site with a pay-what-you-want pricing scheme as recently as September - but various blogs have already made comparisons to krautrock, The Album Leaf and even Brian Eno. The band also has Facebook, Myspace and Twitter pages. We here at FatCat were won over by the 4 tracks they have to date, and can't wait to hear more!
- Fat Cat Records

It’s a real shortcoming of Hallmark as a company, that they don’t offer a “Post-Rock brings families together” greeting card. New York’s Phone Home is the second duo of brothers (the awesome Lymbyc Systym is the other) to channel potential angsty rivalry into beautiful musical alchemy. On their first 4-song self-released EP, Michael and John Vallarelli layer looping, ambient rock rich with melody over a steadily building series of instrumental narratives. Their influences clearly range from originators like Eno to contemporaries like The Album Leaf, but there’s still plenty of room left around the post-rock campfire for earnest, emotive soundtrack-ready missives. Plus, today’s post “Panda” got me through the end of a 2-mile run, giving me just enough of a propulsive blast to get it done. Not only does it sound good, but Phone Home will keep your ass alive. As my Greek father-in-law would say, “This is the real health.”

- Scissorkick.com

With a cover like the one provided above, and a band name that references the Spielberg's E.T., it may be evident that the New York duo Phone Home's debut EP is an embrace of the extraterrestrial-- more specifically, a utopia. This otherworldly characteristic plays a prominent role, not only within thematic terms, but also within the sounds generated by the duo. The cohesion of this EP is created by the idea that these four tracks aren't "songs" as much as they are journeys.

Phone Home's most definitive aspect lies within the metamorphic musicianship. Calming melodies bubble up from aquatic synthesizer tones while being countered by the progressively pounding drums. The instrumental (with the exception of some group woah's and ah's here and there) and skeletal talent of these musicians consults the work of bands like The Octopus Project with their linear and expansive compositions. This structural element may also yield some krautrock comparisons-- but the influence, if any, is so subtle that it may go unnoticed.

Disregarding influences, Phone Home's EP is coated with color, passion and euphoria. The urgency and interplay shaping the music provides Phone Home with an organic tinge to their already eye-opening songs. Much like observing a landscape: not only is it inviting and relaxing, but complex and astonishing as well.
- Olive Music Blog