Underrated release by everyone's favorite Californian post-punkers, where the bizarre and the furious meet pristine classical tradition and culminate into one hell of a late night haunter.
Basically, this was a suite the band wrote up back in the mid 80's but didn't get to record til 1990 or so, and its pretty interesting to see how a group of their freakish pedigree handle such high-minded songwriting. Not that is anything like what Chopin or Bach spent their lives composing; spoken word psychosis meets the sounds of black wind and the fading tide of strings, footsteps and the crackling of a wet knife slipping in between the soul and the ribcage. Elegant, but not human nor lined in warmth.
The atmosphere you ask? Quite disorienting, yet beautiful and horrible in a vaguely Oriental way. Listening to The Ghost Sonata at any point in it's 14 track run is like picking up an old Japanese kaidan and sitting back to read it amidst graves and silent spaces at midnight's zenith on Halloween. This music sounds ancient, peerless and will unnerve the shit out of you in the proper frame of mind. This is the sort of material the dead dream to, alone in their mausoleums with naught but an old record player for company in the blackness. I don't like the places where my mind goes accompanied by some of this stuff, but maaaaan does it take you!
I know we're heading into turkey season now, but I hope a little post-season jitters finds you from these shadowed fragments. Let them sink inside you and out of sight, as if your mind were a deep, deep sewer that drags these tunes into death among the garbage and unseen bodies.
Listen Here - "The Ghost Sonata"
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I was just browsing through your blog when I saw this awesome album here. I didn't know you like Tuxedomoon. Very nice review, although I like the places where this music takes me, even if it's uncomfortable :). Great album and a great blog too.
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