Monday, October 28, 2019

Vinyl Review: "The Color of Sound In Space" by Ghost:Hello

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The Sound of Color In Space
Years ago, I had a job interview where they didn't really believe I could speak Spanish. That's happened twice actually.

Because there are times when I get rusty. But when I'm back in it, it comes back straightaway.

So, my interviewers thought I wasn't what I portrayed myself to be.

What do you do when you have something along those lines?

Enter Ghost:Hello.

They self-describe as a Stoner Rock trio from Ohio. If I lived in Ohio, I'd probably drink more and be in a stoner band too.

It's too flat there.

So, consider...what does Stoner Rock mean to you? For me, it's a band that's somewhat dirty. It's a sound that harkens back to a time when all the rock bands were full on stoners.

Ghost:Hello
The guitars are dingy and drenched in wah and the bass holds the sound together. Maybe it's a bit heavier, towards something along the lines of Black Sabbath.

So, here's the Ghost:Hello line up:
  • Nina Skok -- synthesizers, samples, and Theremin
  • William Jennings -- bass
  • Joe Kidd -- drums and percussion
So, the guitar player is...oh.

There's not a guitarist. There is a Thereminist though. Now being clear, Led Zeppelin did use a Theremin from time to time. Jimmy Page was a total mother fucker on it.

So, get rid of all the ideas of Stoner Rock in your head. Unless you're a member of Ghost:Hello, you're going to find this descriptor to be inaccurate.

What we have is a band that as an entity loves a certain genre of music, but they lack the staff to adequately reproduce this music. 

This is about the greatest thing there is. So, our Ohioan friends have made their take on the genre and it's certainly a singular take at that.

Being a guitarist... I mean guitar owner, the bands that are really driven by a six string slinger are what get my blood flowing, but there's no guitar here. Like the Doors have no bass, Ghost:Hello has no guitar.

Well, the Doors though had Manzerak playing the bass and here Ghost:Hello has William Jennings playing guitar on the bass. The bass is muddied up and playing some truly sick riffs.

It's a wonder why more bands don't go this route. If one's looking for more of an avant garde style this is something that works ever so well by the few acts who choose to employ the system.

If this were a video game, I'd be telling you about replay value, because I've listened to this album five times and I've come away with five different impressions of it.

It's going to take several months of intense investigations before I make sense of The Color of Sound In Space and what a great time will be had in doing so.

It's a truly amazing record.

Here's where we get strange again. It's a low frills package. My copy came with a sticker, an LP, a sleeve, and an inner sleeve.

There wasn't even an insert, but the album is on creamsicle splatter and a 180G slab. Another question to ask this band.

Pick it up.

Good luck!

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