Dublin home-recording experimenter Ghost Motel released their longest album to date this month – and ‘hopeful’ has a great deal to get entwined by and indeed be hopeful about.
Slow-paced, deliberately immediate in recording and filled with intense and intimate moments – it’s a sonic cousin of very early Devendra Banhart and a less arch-inclined Kimya Dawson- in its first take, naïve creations; the melodic simplicity reminds me also of Vashti Bunyan’s open-hearted expression – and there’s a child-like, lullaby quality to it all that adds to the ‘drifting off to dream land’ textures- but a tone of sadness also hangs like blue smoke over everything. There’s depth here despite the spontaneous sonic capture.
Opener ‘fear’ is a slow-burned, melancholic meander that draws you in with surprising lyrical details and subtly beautiful vocal melodies – and when the melodica arrives it provides cathartic counterpoint; it’s a superb example of less is more production -a few chords… a few simple notes…that yearning, near whispered voice: it works beautifully. Like the best home-recorded music, it feels like it wasn’t made necessarily to be overtly publicly pushed – these feel like private intrusions into someone’s inner world- the red record button flashing semaphore into the secrets of the night.
‘time dump’’s brushes of creaking banjo add another subdued element to these songs’ early hours utterances, the importance of capturing a moment outweighing any nod to perfectionism; there are misplaced notes, rhythm shifts and melodic falters but this makes these intimate diary entries all the more precious (to these ears at least) – like a momentary window into an utterly insular world, where to have edited or overdubbed unduly would have resulted in losing that magic of the moment.
‘old world sparrow’ spins its nursery rhyme sense of wonder as the album draws to its conclusions- glockenspiel, melodica and those gently strummed guitars painting more soporific sonic landscapes to fall in love with. It’s a real highlight – and its melody lingers long in the mind after it’s gone- gently digging its claws in and not letting go.
It gives me hope (and I don’t fully know why) that there are folk out there capturing these quiet moments to tape. I doubt many will hear this music but I hope that a good few do – as in its hushed directness it speaks, unencumbered by expectation, straight to the centre of my worn out heart. I am cheered immeasurably by its creation – a friendly ghost haunting my dreams.
Written by M.A Welsh (Misophone)
Music | Misophone (bandcamp.com)
