Ghost - Spectral Mechanics [Inner Demons Records - 2020]After five or so years Spectral Mechanics is the welcome return of Ghost- one of the longest-running, known & revered projects of French Noise artists Julien Skrobek. This new release comes in the form of a 3inch CDR on Florida’s Inner Demons Records- featured is just a single nineteen and a half minute track, that’s best described as walled noise-meets-graceful, yet haunted ambient. The release appears in a monochrome mini sleeve- this features what looks like a murky picture of possible some strange flower. The release is hand-numbered on the small back slip, and comes with a DL code- it came in an edition of forty-two copies- so all been well you should still be able to get your hands on a copy.
The Ghost project started back in 2011- and will be the project that many wall noise folk became aware of Mr. Skrobek's work, and his then progressive take on the genre. In all Ghost released fifteen or so releases, with the last before this been in 2015 (according to Discogs).
The single track here is self-titled and comes in at the 19.38 mark. As I mentioned in my introduction is an even blend of walled noise with classic ambient, so not ANW- but a crossbreed of the two genres. The track is built around an undercarriage of slowly ebbing ‘n’ oscillating ambient- which is a blend of mid & high tones. On top of this, we have a blend of gnarled & churning bass chop/ judder, constant grain swirl, and muffled gallop. The ambient elements nicely slip between bright & golden and simmering & hazed- with at times an almost lush-yet- awkward pitch swarm effect occurring. The walled elements are nicely crude & rough- making for a great contrast to the ambient sweep.
If you enjoy where ambient and noise meet this is most certainly a release for you- let us hope Skrobek decides to do more work under the Ghost banner soon, as it would be great to have a full length full of tracks like this!. Roger Batty
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