"Ghosting 'Catch Waves' from Untitled Split with Bonecloud (Yarnlazer)
Zach Reno and J.P. Jenkins manage to turn the soundtrack into a storyline.
[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."
-MICHAEL BYRNE
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