Ghosting 'Catch Waves' from Untitled Split with Bonecloud (Yarnlazer)

[ATMOSPHERIC STORYTELLING] To musically create atmosphere is one thing. Whatever you call it—ambient, background, mood music—this type of song is meant to be ignored at a certain level, its purpose to accompany a narrative, to be breathed in and out, perhaps drifted with, but rarely charted. To create an atmosphere that tells its own story, that survives without earth and gravity, is something else entirely. The 22 minutes of chiming bells, ghostly electronic drones and haunted guitar delays that is Ghosting's 'Catch Waves' is precisely this. The dry word for it is 'cinematic.' Within its too-short (these 22 minutes elapse in dream time) span is a narration of sense and feeling, traveling from a bewitching solace of barely formed melodics to an anxiety-laden hum, embedded with frail whispers and glances of feedback and squeal. The ending's an abstract horror show that I'm loath to give away, save for the fact that its only resolution is a turn of the volume and effects knobs to '0.'

This track, one half of a split album with Ireland's Bonecloud, is one in a sea of releases for the Ghosting duo of Zach Reno and J.P. Jenkins, many of them on Reno's Onomato CD-R label. This album finds itself on yet another CD-R label, Yarnlazer, in (relatively) limited release. Though I suspect the band isn't terribly concerned, the situation is unfortunate, as 'Catch Waves' is an achievement comparable to the (again, relatively) underground Sonic Youth score for the French film Demonlover, a cold, cynical montage of corporate nightmares. The score has the effect of stilling and clarifying—in the same way a bare, cold day does—the images on the screen, in addition to matching the motions and rhythms of the narrative. The funny thing is when the images and dialogue are removed; the music retains the imprint. The story remains. With 'Catch Waves' we have only the music, which is a good thing. It means we can ascribe whatever concrete world we want to it, within its abstract bounds. Or, we can ascribe nothing to it at all, and simply have a story of moods and feelings.


Ghosting plays with White Rainbow, Paint and Copter, and Plants at the final Church of Psychedelia, Sunday, Oct. 19. Holocene. 9 pm. Free. 21+. Also see Q&A, page 55.

WWeek 2015