New Track: Celebrate Anything At All With 'Escape From Los Angeles' By Holy Ghost
Work by Holy Ghost is out June 21st Via West End Records
Tristan Young @talltristan
Just look at that album cover. The Twin Towers still there in their monolithic glory and the West End Records insignia proudly on display. Yes, for the first time in years a new record is being released under the storied label, and of all groups it’s Holy Ghost. Of course it is. Their new album is called Work and to coincide with the announcement they’ve released a new track, appropriately called ‘Escape From Los Angeles’. The track follows the tradition of opuses like ‘Dumb Disco Ideas’ (their very best song) with a long, winding stream of slowly mutating linear synth. Holy Ghost is no stranger to house disco anthems that embrace joy and ecstasy, but even for them this track is strikingly ebullient. Multiple strands of diffuse sequencers layer with bold and primal combos of major/minor note thrusts. Arpeggiated bass scales meet splashes of growling robotic croaks. It has the trappings of parade on fast forward, a gala that spilled out onto the street corners. Alex Frankel’s eventual lyrical introduction is awash in relief and mystique. His voice glides and dips as if the words were never really there, but their ghostly artifacts leave a trail when he sings, “I could live in the echoes of my favorite records”. He actually sounds far more engrossing in those boundless verses, whereas the other sequences have him sounding a little too tactile and corporeal. As a detached presence his voice bleeds into and permeates the melody with his infectious mood. For something so up tempo and dense, ‘Escape From Los Angeles’ sounds wonderfully content, at peace with its moment and place despite always being in motion. Holy Ghost has articulated the pure unadulterated satisfaction of house disco in potent terms here. It’s a genre that will likely never disappear if only because it’s very concept is one of revitalization. Tracks like this get that.