Phantogram Announces ‘Three’ 10th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue
The Smoky Sky Blue edition features an alternate cover and will be sold exclusively through two outlets.
Phantogram will release a limited edition vinyl pressing of Three on October 30 to mark the album’s 10th anniversary. The Smoky Sky Blue edition features an alternate cover.
The duo’s third album includes “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore,” “Cruel World,” and “Answer.” Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter created the 10-track record over six months in Los Angeles’ Echo Park neighborhood. Informed by the death by suicide of Barthel’s sister, Becky, the album explores heartbreak, grief, and the relationship between pleasure and pain. Its electronic production, guitar textures, and hard-hitting beats provide the setting for Barthel’s vocals and Carter’s delivery.
Speaking to Billboard around the album’s original release, Barthel said, “The record is about heartbreak. The best way to see it is like a beautiful car crash, that for whatever reason makes you slow down and look.” Carter also described a more concise approach to writing: “We learned how to trim a lot of fat and get to the point in more of a pop way.”
The reissue arrives alongside another release involving the duo: a cover of Cold War Kids’ “Hang Me Up To Dry.” Produced by Carter and available to stream now, the rendition uses electronic beats, layered atmospherics, and vocals to reinterpret the song. Cold War Kids frontman Nathan Willett said, “Phantogram made ‘Hang Me Up To Dry’ introspective, emotional, dark and beautiful,” adding that the duo made it “completely their own.”
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The cover will appear on the digital deluxe edition of Cold War Kids’ Robbers & Cowards / Complete Cowards (20th Anniversary Edition), also due October 30. Lifelong friends Carter and Barthel released Phantogram’s debut album, Eyelid Movies, in 2010 and later formed the collaborative project Big Grams with Big Boi.
