Customer Reviews

Ghost Tropic

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hello, four stars are cautiously awarded this album following profuse internal debate and deliberation. Plus some appropriate liquors. You can't go around throwing five cartoon stars at damn near everything; you've got to use them sparingly.

If you know Mr. Songs:Ohia, you've likely already had your shop beautifully wrecked by his mournful sounds. Perhaps you purposely seek such devistation, like me. Good job.

Ghost Tropic does something different than prior Songs:Ohia albums, in that it possesses a conceptual flow from beginning to end, which requires the listener to give their undivided attention throughout the course of the album (for maximum effect). There may not be as many 'hits' on this one, but Ghost Tropic's overall arc and aftermath can be near overwhelming, should your ears and heart yield to it's singular naked emotion. Therefore, be careful when listening.

Largely due to similar vocal phrasing and a foundation of sparse, organic instrumentation, comparisons between Songs:Ohia's Jason Molina and Will Oldham will inevitably abound. However, rather than provide a lo-fi homage to perverse maladjustment, Molina furnishes a technicolour portrait of the more ethereal territory of spiritual wanderlust and saddened backward glances. As a result, Ghost Tropic is a liberating musical experience - carrying all the weight of worldly woes yet still achieving an exhilirating level of emotional transcendence.

This is one of the best albums that you have (probably) never heard! Well, that's if your favourite music emcompasses Talk Talk's "Spirit of Eden", Bonnie Prince Billy's "I See A Darkness" and Joy Division's "Closer" - because that's the kind of territory this record inhabits. Ghost Tropic really lives up to its name; the album is haunted, otherworldly and utterly desolate, creating entirely its own existential landscape from scratch with the help of Mike Mogis and Alisdair Roberts. "Simply to live/that is my plan" sings Jason Molina, accompanied by the most minimal guitar you have heard since Mark Hollis ditched his band because they 'played too many notes'. This record is dark, laying bare a spiritual isolation and emptiness which is rarely heard in any form of music. The album slowly evolves from acoustic beginnings to take in tropical environmental twitterings and creaky programmed percussion, ending with the final synth movement of Incantation, which sounds akin to Joy Division's "The Eternal" if it really did go on forever... Ghost Tropic is modern folk music that sounds like it has just crawled out of the swamp, completely unaware of conventions or anything that has gone before it. It's also a bit of an anomaly for Jason Molina, abandoning Songs:Ohia's (also brilliant) indie-rock/country modes that came before and after for a full-on atavistic descent into his personal darkness. He later revisited this sound, with slightly less success, on Pyramid Electric Co (again recorded with Mike Mogis). But here he did it best. Believe.

I'm not too familiar with the work of Songs:Ohia; this is the first album I've heard. maybe that affects my opinion differently from some of the other people reviewing the album here. anyhow, I found Ghost Tropic to be incredible. bleak, sparse, not-poppy--all of these descriptions apply, and in the best way possible.

I'm a big fan of Jason Molina's work, and this CD is definitely intriguing. There is a lot of very cool sounds on this album. But despite that, it's not very good.

Previous Songs: Ohia projects went from being short, almost spastic snapshots of slanted lines and straightforward guitar parts. It wasn't eveyone's cup of tea, but it was pretty cool if you did like it. The last couple proper albums started fleshing out the songs more and, for the most part, the songs were good enough to really shine. But I think this record has pushed that same envelope beyond what these songs can take. As a result, this record is (intentionally) extremely sparse even though some of the arrangements are a bit complicated. The playing is very good all around too. But the songs are just not there. Jason sings infrequently, and when he does it with a deep, throaty voice that is not his most affecting. If this record were all instrumental and was released as a side project of Songs: Ohia, it'd be pretty cool. But as a full-length release from Songs: Ohia, it can be categorized as an interesting failure.

Note: If you're already a fan of Songs: Ohia, don't let me stop you from buying this. There IS a lot of depth in this work, and some people love this record. Although I think it misses the mark most of the time, I can't blame Jason for trying some new and interesting things.