The tenor of Understanding Holy Ghosts is warm, pacific, contemplative at first blush, but as it goes on, surfaces prove deceptive. More ghostly than holy elements emerge, and Understanding Holy Ghosts ends up walking the Nacht Plank more than taking Autumn of Communion.
Lee Norris ranged far and wide across sub-genres from mid-’90s to ’00s, peddling IDM as Metamatics, soft techno as Norken and glitchy ambient as Nacht Plank. Then in 2005, having closed his Neo Ouija operations, he went AWOL–though only, it now emerges, on a long lie-down. Returning renewed, it’s more the Ambient side he’s feeling, starting up a label, …txt recordings , and serving notice of several collaborative projects. Clearly in rude regenerative health, his Muse’s reanimation first manifest with Mick Chillage in Autumn of Communion, whose sequel, incidentally, previously tagged here, just landed on Anodize. Now for Understanding Holy Ghosts, a first release for Kaico, neophyte sub-label of Tokyo soundscape imprint, SPEKK, Norris finds a foil in ‘Macedonian techno producer,’ Dimitar Dodovski, who joins him in cultivating Moss Garden.
Named after a Nipponic vignette from the proto-ambient bit of Bowie/Eno’s Heroes, Moss Garden presumably acts as more than just nomenclatural inspiration for the gauzy veils of sound infused with exotic sonic tints wafting humidly over dense shifting undergrowth on these pieces. Opener “No Prayers for the Mosquito” has occluded strings redolent of old Roach/Stearns spaces fan out before a little glitch switch is thrown–a subtle jolt prefiguring further rhythmic feints and tilts as the set proceeds. Setting out serene, “Overlooking Oceans” is obliquely tripped in Dub-techno tropes come loose from their genre template–a tidal ebb-flow flecked with liminal synth motifs and spectral melody. “Ritual Solitaire” continues with remade dub-tech timbres and chords in suspension. Shades of the pristine ambient spring of the ’90s are tinged with a grainier autumnal strain, discoloured by a decade (and a half) of post-digital detritus. Dub eddies again on “Structures Of Patience,” like a reterritorialization from Loscil‘s blurred and unresolved repertoire, hints of Delay in its metallic sonorities. “The Fabric Of Sentinel” is a lush harkback to the 90s–dub dismissed, tension released; peace, harmony, remote flute–intimations of New Age sublimated. Mastering by Chihei Hatakeyama seems to favour a saturated cassette-bound sound with hiss bliss smeared over drone depth.
Intriguingly, then, the tenor of Understanding Holy Ghosts is warm, pacific, contemplative at first blush, but as it goes on, surfaces prove deceptive. More ghostly than holy elements emerge, and Understanding Holy Ghosts ends up walking the Nacht Plank more than taking Autumn of Communion.
Understanding Holy Ghosts is available on Kaico [Release page]. Also available is a free digital download two-tracker, Already There.
