A veteran of New York’s downtown scene, Phil Kline stands out for his range and unpredictability. From vast boombox symphonies to chamber music and song cycles, his work has been hailed for its originality, beauty, subversive subtext, and wry humor. 

Raised in Akron, Ohio, he came to New York to study English Literature and music at Columbia University. After graduation, he dove into the thriving art and music community of the East Village, founding the rock band The Del-Byzanteens with Jim Jarmusch and James Nares; collaborating with Nan Goldin on the soundtrack to The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (on view at MoMA through February 2017); and playing guitar in the notorious Glenn Branca Ensemble.

Kline’s early compositions evolved from performance art. He often used dozens or even hundreds of boombox tape players to create symphonic waves of other-worldly tone clusters and voices, carrying a great deal of emotional meaning. This is most notable in his Christmas cult classic Unsilent Night, a pioneering work of public sound art which debuted in the streets of Greenwich Village in 1992 and is today an annual holiday tradition that has been celebrated in more than 100 cities on five continents. Unsilent Night’s luminous multi-dimensional sound environment floats people through their cities as they walk a pre-determined route. Andy Battaglia described it in The Wall Street Journal: “The effect of Kline’s music is gorgeous, as bell sounds lap up against buildings and ricochet all around, and the nondenominational spirit of it can warm even the coldest of hearts.” Critic Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times: “It immerses a listener in suspended wonderment, as if time itself had paused within a string of jingling sleigh bells.”

Other tape-based works of this period include to be sung on the water, played throughout the Whitney Museum during the 1995 Biennial; the theater piece Into the Fire, with texts by Luc Sante and presented at The Kitchen in 2000; and the ritual last words before vanishing from the face of the earth, given its only hearing on top of Terrible Mountain near Ludlow, Vermont in 2001.

In 1992, on the recommendation of Glenn Branca, Phil sent a cassette tape with a letter to the legendary music collective Bang on a Can who in turn invited Phil to play on their famed Marathon. Phil debuted his breakthrough piece Bachman’s Warbler for 12 tape loops and harmonicas (considered one of the 1990’s post-minimalist classics), creating a sound no one had heard before, and cementing what would become a longstanding relationship with Bang on a Can. In The Los Angeles Times, critic Mark Swed described Phil as “one of the more striking composers that the Bang-on-a-Canners have given relatively wide exposure to. Kline first made an impression through his pieces for harmonica and boomboxes that with single-minded obsession turn simple musical materials into arrestingly elaborate sonic experiences.”