Ghost

October 31, 2004

Ghost | Hypnotic Underworld |Drag City | Japan

buy it
Progressive rock and jazz fusion are the two sides of the same Othello game piece. Both tend to pull from a humble vagabond's bag of tricks--Celtic and English folksong on the white side and the blues on the black. Both hold instrumental virtuosity in high esteem and have no fear of extended track lengths, fuzz guitars and orgiastic displays of improvisation. Being remote in both time and space from the origins of these two musical movements, Japan's Ghost is a band free to pull from both trick bags while holding a third bag of their own Eastern mysticism and musicality.