A Vast And Decaying Appearance has an almost anthemic, multi-instrumental core around which its synth, textures and samples rivet and cohere.
The background of (ghost) (aka Brian Froh), his compositional background, is in collaborations, in band writing and performance. It’s no surprise that his fascinatingly, satisfyingly complex A Vast And Decaying Appearance, released by n5MD, has an almost anthemic, multi-instrumental core around which its synth, textures and samples rivet and cohere.
Its first track, “780.03,” is emblematic of this. A vast background of haunting, resonant synth, gearing around a major root, transforms into a densely packed and threatening environment of crunching static and what resembles—echoingly—a chanting voice, something threatening, anxious. It shows how (ghost) literally builds “appearance” into the fabric and framework of the composition, giving us peace and tranquility before snatching it away, transporting it.
What is so exciting about this is that the subsequent title track extends this discourse with a buzzing loop of tightly compacted keys and drones under-layered by a rising, resonant synth that gains and gains behind it. The effect is joyously imaginative and, despite so much “going on,” is so well crafted as to nearly knock you backwards—it is simply that satisfying to the ear. Eventually, this gives way to a new plateau of a series of major keys that fuse and twist behind it, slowly ebbing and fraying at their edges. One of the compositional difficulties of such creation is that the differing tempos can begin to derange one another and lose their subtleties and identities. Not so here. It is extremely well balanced and aurally satisfying. When at last a resonant sequence arises out of this, the track lurches us into a new environment of conversation between this earlier counterpoint—the loop and beat satisfies and merges with the synth, melding with it. The track matures and develops its own momentum and meets, graciously, in this new space of a surprising melody. Thematically, (ghost) is playing with surprise—literally, with our encounter with this vast and decaying appearance.
Later tracks, like “Transmit,” offer up dizzying, clicking beats fueled by up-tempo electric house influences, crisp and shattering. This sustains the developments of his first album, Departure, in its cross-roads of electronic, pop, and synth. What this does is to elevate that euphoria and perhaps the compression of house into the open worlds of ambient. Its tracks bridge from key to key, environment to environment. This comes to a fore in the brilliant, challenging “Vessel,” in which a progression of minor notes creeps around on the board while being frustrated and weathered by sharp, snatching snares and crisp electronic beats, fizzing and whirring while the slow melancholia of the piano pushes on against it. Again, it has this incredible and often surprising muscularity and precision that marks the entire album out as an absolute pleasure to listen and listen to.
A Vast And Decaying Appearance is available on n5MD. [Bandcamp]
