Ghosts Of Marumbey

Guitar based noise, solo multitrack, few vocals. Long piece, divided in sections. Even though there’s some great fingerstyle guitar at the beginning and end of this CD, I wouldn’t call it “free folk.” The middle is reminiscent of the NY Noise scene of a couple decades ago- on the other hand, considering the trajectory of Michael Gira, the free (freak?)-folk touches make sense. Apparently he’s entirely from Pennsylvania, and was in the Arco Flute Foundation, which makes sense- this CD has that band’s noise.

++1. Pretty guitar, starts with mostly slide/abstract, morphs to acoustic/pretty with some shimmer. After about 4 minutes it goes “out there” with a noise drone (good time to backannounce!)
2.chiming dissonant guitar harmonics, haunted house reverb layers, gets tense, builds w/end having pretty great rocking drum under the din.
+3.Purity, restraint, close-mic’d guitar/electrics like coiled snakes. Some vocals in distant background, indistinct . Tension relaxes into echo soup, builds a bit. End has some wonky synth/guitar repetition.
++4.Lots of harmonics, took me a while to hear harmonica! Then good drum pound and deep drone. Fades at end.
5.Bleeps at beginning, then deep gamelan-like bells, then add buzzing.
+6.Buzzing becomes metallic, acoustic strumming drowns it out. Becomes a minor-key rolling fingerpicking piece, appealing, nothing technically fancy.