In the early 1990s, the Projekt label pulled three bedroom-studio acts out of Arizona and gave them a wider audience: Lycia, Lovesliescrushing, and Soul Whirling Somewhere. The last of those was Michael Plaster, whose 1993 debut Eating the Sea built a small, devoted following on aching, vocal-led ethereal songs. He released a handful of records, closed the project for good in 2017, and went quiet.
Solipsis is the sound of that silence ending, on Plaster's own terms.
From Soul Whirling Somewhere to yttriphie
Plaster resurfaced in 2025 under a new name, yttriphie (say it "IH-tri-fee," like "atrophy" with the A swapped for a short I), with a debut called An Extremely Slow Motion Explosion. Solipsis, released April 14, 2026, is the second yttriphie album, and the project has settled into something clear: this is ambient music, and it is entirely instrumental.
That last part matters. Soul Whirling Somewhere was built around Plaster's voice and confessional writing. yttriphie drops the vocals entirely and lets the arrangements carry the weight, filling the space they leave with the occasional downtempo beat or texture. If you came for the singing, it is gone. What replaces it is patient and detailed enough that you may not miss it.
What Solipsis sounds like
The reference points Projekt lists are a useful map: Jon Hopkins, Rival Consoles, Halftribe, and Sigur Rós. Picture the electronic-ambient detail of the first two, the post-rock weather of the third, and a downtempo pulse running underneath.
Across eight tracks and 67 minutes, the album works in layers. Brittle strings surface through a feathery bed of texture. Hollow pianos and worn, eroded guitars move over huge pads that swell and retreat. Tiny, distant bells mark faint rhythms that come and go. Several songs carry a built-in turn: they open gentle and shimmering, then shift halfway through into something darker and heavier before the reverb swallows them. It is the kind of record that rewards full attention and a good pair of headphones, and it asks to be heard start to finish rather than shuffled.
Two tracks anchor it. "The Pulpy Center" is the loud peak, a collision of synths, horns, and percussion. "Everything is Disappearing" is the quiet one, sad and reflective, and the closest thing the album has to an emotional center.
The idea behind it
The title is a word with a piece missing. Plaster took the "m" off "solipsism," the philosophical position that the only thing you can be sure exists is your own mind. He runs with the uncertainty that follows: maybe life is a dream, a simulation, or a memory replaying. Out of that, he made an album for the one consciousness he is sure of. He describes the songs as little stories, each tracing a melody toward a resolution that lands both musically and thematically.
It is heady framing for music this calm, but it fits. The record keeps circling things that come apart slowly, the same fascination with entropy that ran through the debut, turned here toward what it means to be aware at all.
Where it sits
Projekt has been a home for introspective ambient, ethereal, and darkwave music for four decades, and Solipsis lands squarely in that lineage. Plaster has stayed close to that world in his return, lending his voice to label founder Sam Rosenthal's Black Tape For A Blue Girl along the way. Critics met the 2025 debut warmly, drawing comparisons to the quieter end of Sigur Rós and the ambient work of David Sylvian. Solipsis reads as a step forward from it: more assured, more dynamic, and still unmistakably the work of the person who made Eating the Sea.
For longtime fans, it is the rare reunion that does not run on nostalgia. For new listeners, it is simply a strong, slow-moving ambient record with a melancholy streak and a real sense of craft.
Tracklist
- Anfov
- Paddock of Skies
- Plurals
- A Narrow Field of View
- The Pulpy Center
- Inpirrik
- Everything is Disappearing
- Underplump
How to hear it
Solipsis is out now on Projekt as a name-your-price digital release, so you can stream it in full and pay what you want. Eight tracks, 67 minutes, best taken in one sitting with the lights low.
