Taphephobia‘s latest release is an absolute peach. It is Ketil Søraker‘s tenth since 2007, the third for Cyclic Law and the album finds him revisiting the theme to Twin Peaks as a starting point for this gently unfolding journey, a cycle of songs that finds the listener drifting in some sort of extraordinary limbo. If you could visualise a place where the dying embers of Slowdive‘s 1990s career is given an opportunity to meld with the current swathe of drone composers and left to drift weightless and heaven-bound, then this is the result. The kind of album that would have been the result if Flying Saucer Attack‘s Instrumentals 2015 had gone in the other direction and left it completely untethered.
The Twin Peaks reference is an interesting one and there are points here that would have fitted seamlessly into the original show; perhaps not so much the recent series, where the sense of melancholy and helplessness was replaced by a grittier feel. The title Ghostwood refers to the national park that surrounds the town of Twin Peaks and the track that opens the album is the one particularly inspired by the series. The waves of drone that ebb and flow like shifting sands in a desert have that insistent melancholy tinged with just the faintest hopeful twist that so described the series. Although, referencing the forest of the show, I can’t help detecting a touch of heat-baked earth amidst the subtle swathes of feedback. Thankfully, this is not a pastiche and you may not necessarily make the connection without Ketil’s pointer.
As the album progresses so the ante is upped, the volume increasing slightly and the drones becoming more insistent and really rather captivating. The simple reverby picked guitar of “Transformed Through Alienation” shimmers like a heat haze as it echoes and drifts away into the distance; in the background, the drone soothes our fevered brow and the simple repetition acts like a mantra. The lulling mood eventually breaks on “Ghost Of Him”, and the mood becomes heavier with dark clouds amassing away on the horizon. The threat of rain and the humid feel suits the disturbing cover art. Although the cover looks oppressive, the sounds generated are more open than that, and the overall impression of the album as a whole is that of a person somehow free of gravity, subtly losing touch with terra firma and heading for the great unknown. Disembodied voices and the swell and surge of jet engines on “Unwanted Visitors” describe that ascent into the upper reaches of the atmosphere; but there is no fear here, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. A cello-like sound on “The Other World Doesn’t Exist” does inject a little mournfulness, but that soon dissipates and is consumed by further roars and surges.Penultimate track “A Bitter Alternative” is slightly darker again, and somehow the drone grumbling and groaning around the storm clouds evokes a frustration. Its own yearning to break free from a naturally imposed cycle offsets that of our traveller, evading gravity’s reach and drifting further out of sight, leaving the atmosphere and going beyond. The final track “Fragility, Secrets And Revelation” is the one that or me is most evocative of Twin Peaks and with a title like that, it is no surprise. There are vocals here, but the most ethereal that you can imagine, sitting atop the drone and combining with the most graceful, shimmering guitar effect to really conjure up that unique atmosphere.
Ketil has really treated us to something on Ghostwood that is far beyond the kind of droning shoegaze we have come to expect. The gentleness that pervades the album is all soft soundscapes and subtle repetition, but the tracks evade the obvious, making a captivating and rather blissful experience.-Mr Olivetti-
