(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Summary.
Ghost, led by guitarist and vocalist Masaki Batoh, fused Japanese folk music and ambient music on Ghost (1991). The surreal orchestration and "ghostly" effects of Lama Rabi Rabi (1996), increased the gothic quotient,
while the four-part title-track of Hypnotic Underworld (2004)
was the crowning formal achievement of a group of visionary jazz-rock musicians,
equally adept at pop songwriting and bizarre avantgarde.
Ghost was founded in 1987 by guitarist and vocalist Masaki Batoh, the leader of a large creative commune, and included multi-instrumentalists Taishi Takizawa (guitars, strings and horns) and Kazuo Ogino (bagpipes, strings and horns). Their sound was born at the intersection of psychedelic rock and prog-rock.
Ghost (PSF, 1991) caused a stir because of the way it managed to blend Japanese folk music and ambient music, somewhat along the lines of the
Third Ear Band.
The "Tibetan" trilogy of Moungod, the Pink Floyd-esque vision of I've Been Flying, and the mad percussiveness of Sun Is Tangging mark a huge boundary.
Second Time Around (PSF, 1992) is less psychedelic than it is progressive
and folk.
The majestic Nick Cave-esque sermon of Second Time Around sets the pace
for the best song:
the oneiric and Indian ambiance of Forthcoming From The Inside escalates
into a galloping Slavic raga, whipped by more emphatic singing.
At the same time, the celtic prelude of People Get Freedom and the
graceful medieval dance of Higher Order mark a regression to a more
pastoral sound.
A Day Of The Stoned Sky In The Union Zoo and Orange Sunshine
weave the mystical/lysergic
tones of Jefferson Airplane and
It's A Beautiful Day
into, respectively, a flute and piano dirge and a calm hymn.
This transitional album captures Ghost while the project is evolving from
a song format to a more abstract and loose format.
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L 'album Temple Stone (PSF, 1994) corona l'ascesa del gruppo con
esibizioni dal vivo in una chiesa cristiana e un tempio buddista.
Il confine fra gotico e ambientale si fa sempre piu` sfumato, e cosi` quello
fra folk ed elettronica. I Giapponesi Ghost si ispirano alla scuola della
Projekt (Lycia, Black Tape For A Blue Girl, Love Spirals Downward, etc) ma si
spingono molto piu` avanti nel campo degli arrangiamenti. Pochi i precedenti
per gli abbozzi di quadretti esotici di Lama Rabi Rabi (Drag City, 1996),
per quegli strascichi di rumori
ambientali, per questi funambolici balletti astratti.
La lenta e ipnotica trance di Masttillah e` intessuta da otto minuti di giochi
di prestigio mediorientali (percussioni, flauti, cornamuse).
Quel misto di fanfara tribale e di sabba corale di Rabirabi rimescola
intuizioni di Magma, Gong e Popol Vuh. Il florilegio tzigano di Marrakesh
esplode in un bailamme di chitarre e percussioni e sconfina in una melodia
onirica alla Light My Fire.
Le melodie sono leziose fino alla nausea, ma sempre immerse in atmosfere
allucinate, super-lisergiche. Quella di Summer's Ashen Fable fa venire in
mente i primi Grateful Dead. Quella sterminata di Agate Scape caracolla a
ritmo country fino a perdersi dentro un buco nero di cacofonie in vertiginoso
crescendo.
Da un altro squarcio di tempo sbocciano la ballata acustica di Into The Alley,
il saltarello medievale di Who Found A Lost Rose e la litania africana di
Abyssinia, sempre perturbati da spunti etnici ed elettronici.
Batoh ha anche pubblicato due EP solisti,
A Ghost From The Darkened Sea (New Sound, 1996),
bizzarro tributo al folk psichedelico,
e Kikaokubeshi (New Sound, 1996), opera d'avanguardia,
che sono stati raccolti su
Collected Works 1995-1996 (Now Sounds, 1997 - Drag City, 2004).
Nel 1999 escono simultaneamente due album dei Ghost,
Snuff Box Immanence e Turn In Turn On Free Tibet .
Snuff Box Immanence (Drag City, 1999) li presenta in vesti completamente
diverse: quelle di giullari folk. Batoh ha composto una decina di ballate
acustiche che gli altri hanno arrangiato con dovizia di strumenti (clavicembalo,
tromba, trombone, marimba, vibrafono, arpa celtica, liuto, flauto, banjo,
campane tubolari e tastiere). Il risultato e` il folk medievaleggiante di
Regenesis, Soma e Sad Shakers,
un curioso ibrido di Jethro Tull e Donovan. Ma il disco pullula di bizzarrie,
come il kitsch di Live With Me,
ibrido di musica caraibica e di pop psichedelico.
Pochi i brani ambiziosi:
lo strumentale Daggma
fonde musica da camera occidentale e orientale all'insegna di cicli
percussivi in stile minimalista; e
la title-track e` un pastiche psichedelico, tanto stralunato quanto le ballate
di Syd Barrett e tanto sporco quanto i blues di Captain Beefheart.
L'album, sconcertante, segna un improvviso arretramento.
Turn In Turn On Free Tibet (Drag City, 1999) modera gli arrangiamenti,
ma introduce l'elemento propagandistico. Le ballate non si discostano molto
dallo stile folk del disco precedente (salvo essere molto piu` spartane), ma
il piglio e` decisamente piu`
politico, come dimostrano l'aria eroica di Comin' Home e il tempo
marziale di Change The World.
Il flauto di Kazuo Ogino, il vibrafono di Setsuko Furuya e il violoncello
di Hiromichi Sakamoto sono comunque maturati attraverso l'orgia del disco
precedente.
La title-track e` una suite di oltre mezz'ora, e sembra appartenere a un
altro gruppo, forse ai Popol Vuh di Hosianna Mantra. La melodia slitta
continuamente, il ritmo e` appena abbozzato, gli strumenti improvvisano
contrappunti tanto sconnessi quanto sensuali. Dalle volute iniziali
(arpeggi delicati di chitarra, gorgheggi di soprano,
accordi celestiali di vibrafono) si passa a una suspence metafisica
dominata dalle tastiere elettroniche e dalle percussioni. Poi
violoncello e vibrafono imbastiscono un pezzo da camera che viene divorato
da droni sempre piu` stridenti e assordanti. La musica scompare in una
nebulosa di rumori, che poco alla volta acquista le sembianze di un
bombardamento. Dopo un'epopea di trenta minuti, Batoh ritrova il bandolo
della matassa e lancia il suo accorato messaggio politico.
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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
With Ghost (Subpop, 2000), a collaboration with
Damon And Naomi.
Ghost lives up to its name on
Hypnotic Underworld (Drag City, 2004), particularly the four-part
23-minute title-track.
Its first 13-minute movement,
God Took A Picture Of His Illness On This Ground,
begins with metallic dissonances
(Kazuo Ogino's resonating keyboards and Michio Kurihara's space guitar)
that create a ghostly soundscape. The languid,
aneimic, disoriented wailing of a saxophone
(Taishi Takizawa), matched by equally dejected bass
lines (Takuyuki Moriya), arises from a sparse chaos of percussions,
(Junzo Tatetwa)
reminiscent of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
The jamming slowly ascends to a
sophisticated interplay of dissonant, underplayed instruments
(last but not least, Masaki Batoh's acoustic guitar).
Saxophone, keyboards and guitars repeat the trick in
Escaped And Lost Down In Medina,
but the music is more lively (with a regular tempo) and driven by melodic
motifs. If the first movement was pure disintegration of a message, the
second movement is a spiritual gathering of intense feelings.
The keyboards still emit sudden spurts of dirty notes, the guitar still drones
to the skies, but the saxophone's loud and whirling prayer drives everything
into a moving crescendo.
Rock'n'roll finally erupts from Aramaic Barbarous Dawn, introduced by
manic riffs and cosmic keyboards, and then propelled into the infinite by
a medieval choir. This is also the first song, with Batoh's vocals penning
a surreal scenario, like Salvador Dali' meeting King Crimson.
The suite ends with an odd finale, Leave The World, which is simply
twenty seconds of very fast drumming.
The 10-minute Gangagmanag is another multi-part suite: a graceful instrumental dance led by jazzy flute and minimalist organ with spectral appearances of the other instruments; a sudden mutation into a bamboo forest; a coda of pounding piano and drums in a psychedelic ambience.
The rest of the album doesn't even come close to the rapture of the
monolithic title-track, but would still be a significant album by the standards
of the average psych-pop band:
Hazy Paradise is a languid ballad in the style of early Pink Floyd, augmented with harpsichord and King Crimson-ian mellotron;
Feed is another languid ballad, but this time in the melodramatic
tone of David Bowie;
Poper begins as a calm, gentle, pastoral medieval-sounding chamber piece for cello, flute and zither that suddenly explodes in a furious hard-rocking boogie a` la Jethro Tull;
Holy High is a frantic and syncopated saltarello that mixes medieval style and modern neurosis with folk-rock storytelling;
Kiseichukan Nite is a spoken-word piece with accompaniment of traditional Japanese instruments;
and the album closes with the mantra/osanna of Dominoes - Celebration For The Gray Days, recited over and over again in a triumphal procession of
minimalist repetitions of church organ melodies.
The title-track is, in many ways, the equivalent of Soft Machine's sixth album,
the crowning formal achievement of a group of visionary jazz-rock musicians.
The rest of the album is, in many ways, their A Saucerful of Secrets,
equally adept at pop songwriting and bizarre avantgarde.
Hiromichi Sakamoto has released the solo album
Zero-shiki (1999).
Ghost's guitarist Michio Kurihara released the solo albums
Sunset Notes (Pedal, 2005) and
Rainbow (2006).
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