The Road to Valhalla.

In creating such a mesmerizing body of work, the Vermont-based musician spent months writing and recording in his home studio (including much of 2020’s lockdown), immersing himself in sonic experiments ranging from the playfully spontaneous (constructing beats by banging wrenches against various pieces of farming equipment) to the hyper-specific and technical (programming a keyboard with chords sampled from’50s-era Hawaiian guitar records). Revealing entirely new dimensions of the kaleidoscopic musicianship he’s displayed as Phish’s bassist for the last four decades, the result is a work of both extraordinary vision and daring execution.

“As someone who comes from a world of telepathic improvisation, the idea of one person layering sounds alone in a room might seem a bit against the mythos,” says Gordon, who names Stevie Wonder’s largely self-contained approach on his classic 1972 album Talking Book as a touchstone for Flying Games. “But with this record I didn’t want to work in that traditional way of going into a studio with a band and recording for two weeks; I wanted to take my time and explore, and really go deep into the fabric of the music to see what we could find.”

“As someone who comes from a world of telepathic improvisation, the idea of one person layering sounds alone in a room might seem a bit against the mythos,” says Gordon, who names Stevie Wonder’s largely self-contained approach on his classic 1972 album Talking Book as a touchstone for Flying Games. “But with this record I didn’t want to work in that traditional way of going into a studio with a band and recording for two weeks; I wanted to take my time and explore, and really go deep into the fabric of the music to see what we could find.”