"PHILM channels the distress of modern-day urban life; the anxiety, tension and anger that that all too often find expression in destructive acts of resentment rather than creative acts of resistance. Philipp Gropper has found a way to engage musically with his own response to those social conditions, and in PHILM, a group of fellow musicians who can convey the emotional depth of that response to the listening audience."
Marc Werlin - all about jazz ny

What Gropper then played for a good eighty minutes with his current
Philm line-up with bassist Robert Landfermann, keyboardist Elias
Stemeseder and drummer Leif Berger, justified all expectations of something special. It became a completely convincing conquest of the room in front of an astonished audience. No pause, no words, no applause in between, none of the usual jazz solos and, after the enthusiastic applause, no encore either.
instead a compactly balanced group sound full of robust suppleness, music that doesn't beat around the bush but penetrates directly to the core and stays there. Dense parallelism between saxophone and keyboards, a powerful double bass at a playful upper limit for the instrument and a drum kit that constantly can push again and again and steer in new directions. The result is
music that circles our existence, comments on it and places it in larger contexts. (Ulrich Steinmetzger, Leipziger Volkszeitung, April 2025, übersetzt mit DeepL)

"Philipp Gropper's PHILM zerstört und rettet die heilende Kraft der Musik." (Stefan Hentz, Jazzthetik)

„Fünf Alben hat dieses Quartett … veröffentlicht – und jedes davon besticht durch eine kompromisslose Wahrhaftigkeit und Offenheit … Das Berliner Quartett trifft genau ins Schwarze der Zeitgeist-Zielscheibe!“ (Rolf Kühn, Jazzpreis Laudatio für "Beste Band" 2021)

"PHILM (...) entwickelt Wege, die Musik so zu verändern, dass sie erhalten bleibt als ein Mittel, die Gegenwart zu verstehen, zu verändern, zu bewältigen. Als eine heilende Kraft." (Stefan Hentz, Jazzthetik)

"Es geht um eine relativ naive Suche nach Soundwelten, nach Beats oder was auch immer, die zu einem sprechen, abenteuerlich sind und ein Knistern reinbringen. Das ist eine spirituelle Aufgabe, immer mit der Herausforderung, das durch ein Instrument in Musik zu übersetzen." (Zitat IV Jazzpodium)

"(PHILM's) music comes across as an exciting and vibrant example of the ways that contemporary jazz is developing." (Tony Dudley-Evans, UK Jazz News) 

"The band is incredibly impressive at navigating the material, forging a kind of rhythmic jujitsu that smashes freebop with the most angular hip-hop breaks imaginable." (Peter Margasak Nowhere Street)

"PHILM channels the distress of modern-day urban life; the anxiety, tension and anger that that all too often find expression in destructive acts of resentment rather than creative acts of resistance. Philipp Gropper has found a way to engage musically with his own response to those social conditions, and in PHILM, a group of fellow musicians who can convey the emotional depth of that response to the listening audience." (Marc Werlin, All About Jazz NY)