Tremulant, Ghostwriter (subexotic)
If a book is ghostwritten it suggests unseen creators working with more famous authors to tidy up their memories or ideas into coherence. Here, on Ghostwriter’s album Tremulant we might move more towards a notion of channelling: spirits summoned, incantations and spells, voices from the ether…
In fact, Tremulant is a strange ambient gospel album, where what used to be called spirituals and hymns are subverted by echo, wheezing organ and spacious musical interludes, which recontexualise, reimagine, stretch and mutate the very idea of song. There are echoes of classic Nico (the cold beauty of Desertshore), there is declamatory poetry, alt-folk, noise and gentle discord, but every time calm vocals return to soothe and entrance the listener.
The group are at their best when they stretch out and prolong their music, as the shorter tracks such as the opener ‘Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down’ and the musical interlude of ‘Here’ are not given time to breathe, unlike ‘I Stand Amazed’, which drifts from silence into song, then gradually opens up to explore the gaps between notes, the links between verses, what isn’t there as much as what is.
The 16 minute closing track, ‘The Anchor’, is even better. It starts with a male voice speaking, then moves into the sound of percussion and distance before a solo vocal is admitted, followed by some ensemble singing. There is a strange section of humming or wordless singing that then drifts into more abstract sound, before an organ duets with gentle feedback for an extended outro, slowly mutating into a high pitched whistle sound.
It’s strange stuff that Mark Brend, Suzy Mangion, Andrew Rumsey and Michael Weston King have put together as Ghostwriter and released; more so because they apparently were never in the same room together. I know only one of these names, and then as a fiction writer and reviewer, not as a musician, so have no idea of where they are coming from or what the idea behind the album is.
As it stands, I can only compare it to stumbling across a late night band practice in a ruined country church before standing outside in the dark, listening. It is eerie, intriguing and enchanting music, rooted in song and infused with echoes of the past two centuries’ beliefs and threads of spirituality and song.
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Rupert Loydell
You can find out more, as well as listen to and buy Tremulant here.