Drag City US Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Ghost are sadly an easily confused band - doubly so, for the fact that there is now a wildly popular masked metal troupe of the same name, *and* because there is, uncannily, a 1984 film named Ghost, also rather well known. This confounding is apparently so prevalent that the obligatory Wikipedia entry on *this* Ghost is titled
'Ghost (1984 band)'. We wouldn't usually mention it, save for the fact that this perhaps not so wilful obscurantism actually works in their favour. With Drag City's reissue of Ghost's first album on griseous vinyl here, it's safe to say that this Japanese experimental psych/acid record's aura as a hidden gem feels rare to come by. It's almost as if Ghost (1984) is 'haunting' the other aforementioned cultural touchstones of the same name. Don't get it twisted, though: Ghost formed in the early 80s, but this debut recording didn't make it to the pressing plant until 1990. What explains the gap in their CV, you ask? Legend has it that the band led a truly nomadic existence - as a "band" should, in all senses of the word - roving, drifting from ruined ancient temples to disused subway stations near Tokyo. With that all checked, the album itself is truly free-spirited and eerie, and not what you'd expect from contemporary notions of space rock, with prepared tinkerings and strange readymade detritus seeming to fill each piece at every twist and turn.

Review: Few conversations or analyses surrounding doom metal can begin without mentioning the integral Sleep and their genre-defining opus Dopesmoker. That same analytical discussion cannot be rounded up without OM coming into the fray, as the duo of bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Haikus originally worked together as Sleep's rhythm section. The hypnotic 'Gebel Barkal' single would serve as the final recording from the pair following the 2007 full-length Pilgrimage, before 2009's God Is Good would welcome the arrival of current drummer Emil Amos and signal the group's continued expansion into an eventual three-piece.

Review: A one-of-a-kind record from a one-in-a-million "state-of-mind jam band", Upstate by Prison hears five guys, four vocals and three guitars melded together in a craft that runs on its own rock & roll synergy. A self-perpetual psychosonic release, the LP consists only of five 15 to 20-minute long jam pieces, all of which seem to endlessly revel in caterwauling, hooting, Wahhing, and droning, ultimately beating the horse of contemplative psychedelia to death until both a heightened state of consciousness and a renewed music-making praxis is achieved. Sure, it goes too far! How the hell else you gonna get Upstate?

Review: Ty Segall's first album in two years takes the artist into rather new and unexpected musical territory. The production has had a whole redesign and come out the other side with a synthtastic sound but there remains a load of keys and guitars, too. As such Harmonizer sounds new and fresh with plenty of bursts of transcendent energy. The Freedom Band were called upon during the origin of this album and so appear all throughout it, but often one at a time. This intense record is a grown up soul sound that gets more and more compelling with each listen as fresh details keep on revealing themselves.

Review: Following 2022's acoustic opus - Hello, Hi - Ty Segall returns with Three Bells, his most ambitious, elastic set of songs to date. A 15-song cycle that takes the listener on a journey to the center of the self (whether that be Segall's or a projection of the listener's own self), Three Bells' arc is rainbow-like, promising a prosperious fulfilment of desire, but ever extending outwards from our reach, keeping the listener in a state of suspense. Though Ty's is a daimonic journey, it's still brimming with alternating perspectives, never once settling onto any lyrical platitude and keeping its sense of resolve open-ended.