Ghostwriter – The Continuing Adventures Of The Strange Sound Association

The album title alone promises an evocative journey into the maze of sound. The references in the track titles to various artists such as George Simenon or John Steinbeck expand on this idea and open up a vast associative horizon.

At first glance this might appear as an easy way to artificially add some depth to the track, but Mark Brend, the person behind the Ghostwriter project, doesn’t stop by just simply referring to random artists in the track titles. A lot of the tracks make use of archive and fictive recordings of mentioned artists. Although this doesn’t change the impact on the listening experience that drastically, the monologue-esque recordings nevertheless add a lot of character to the tracks, making them appear like soundtracks to french movies from the 60s or 70s. Maybe this is the reason, why The Continuing Adventures Of The Strange Sound Association, at places, feels a bit like a more eerie, outlandish version of a Yann Tiersen soundtrack. Sweet melancholic melodies meet warm insomniac textures: Distant sounds pass by, little melodies oscillate like a calm breeze between the sounds, the spoken words and field-recordings give the pieces directions and foundation yet leaving it in a lucid warm and glistening doze.

It’s amazing how many different instruments are featured in this piece without making the variety appear like a gimmick or without overcrowding the tracks. Melodicas, music-boxes, vintage synths and a lot of other boutique and rare instruments find their way into the 15 tracks of the nearly 40 minutes long album.

The large selection of rather soft instruments and the soundtrack-like feeling are probably the main reasons that The Continuing Adventures Of The Strange Sound Association sounds a bit easy listening at first. Nevertheless it reveals its various layers and directions more and more with each run. At a closer listen the sleek surface cracks open more, makes room for a lot more associative connections between different parts of the tracks. The loose and elliptic narrative of the tracks gives the album a permanent flowing feeling. It’s not even really clear, where tracks end and where new ones begin. The various different monologues and voice recordings serve a little bit as a divider between different parts and segments and give the work direction.

Plus the beautifully handcrafted packaging makes Ghostwriter’s first album a thoroughly joyful experience. – Review by Nils Quak for Fluid Radio

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