Ghostwood - The Lost Album
Today we’re constantly warned about our digital footprint to the point of cliche. These warnings are not without good reason as horror stories abound where something a person said, clicked or liked online come back to haunt them years later. We can only shake our heads at some of the ridiculous, pointless or downright stupid things we did in those innocent, trailblazing years of social media a decade ago.
When you’ve had a social media profile for such a long time, you pick up significant flotsam and detritus. A Facebook friend with someone you’ve only met a couple of times and won’t see ever again, a page you hit like on because of one mildly bemusing post, a page to a concrete business because one of your mates asked you to. Most of these relics cling to us forgotten, unseen, mostly benign and waiting for the day when we finally clear out our profiles like we’ve always been saying we will.
I say all this because last month a distant memory of my digital footprint reared its way back into my life in a most unexpected way.
On a Sunday evening, I spent a few minutes scrolling mindlessly through Facebook as I made myself a tea and was greeted with this.
Ghostwood, a Sydney shoegaze band, was releasing an album. At first glance, this wasn’t particularly exciting news. In our current world where we are forever drowning in content, another band releasing an album was just another brick in the wall. But what made this announcement different from others was that Ghostwood is a band that had the briefest of moments in the sun in 2007-2008 before disappearing for more than a decade; unseen, unheard and entirely forgotten. Just another band to fall victim to the chaos of young adulthood.
I saw Ghostwood at the Northcote Social Club a decade ago. I’m fairly certain they were supporting Mercy Arms, another Sydney shoegaze band that fell apart too soon, but the memories all bleed and blend after so long that I can’t be sure. What I do remember is being mesmerized by what I saw on stage. Atmospheric, driven and powerful. This was a band that hooked you in and didn’t let go. I remember buying their EP straight after the set ended and playing it for weeks on heavy rotation. This was a band that seemed set for big things.
In 2008, Ghostwood relocated to Britain to play shows and record an album. The social media posts dried up and eventually, I moved on assuming the band had come to an end and its members moved on to the next stage of their lives.
Needless to say, that June 2019 post took my by surprise. At once, the memories of that show and that EP came flooding back to me and I eagerly anticipated listening to this record they had dubbed The Lost Album.
Upon its release on Spotify a few days later I was impressed by how fresh this lost album sounded even though it was recorded years ago. The tracks from the old EP were there. “I Am Overcast” still teased with swirling guitars and pounding drums while “Red Version” still creates an increasingly tense soundscape that cries for release up until the final seconds. I expected these tracks, regardless of their quality, to grab me for no other reason than the pure nostalgia hit of remembering a time in my life that almost feels foreign to what I am now.
What I didn’t expect was that the previously unreleased tracks to hit me with the same emotional punch. “Pink Panther” with its ethereal and moody instrumentals and forlorn vocals mesmerizes as it washes into your skin. Closing tracks “Haha1996” and “Great Inventions” are more upbeat and irresistibly catchy.
As someone who is constantly fighting an internal battle over their love/hate relationship with shoegaze, this album is a reminder of what the genre can offer at its finest- beautiful, distorted soundscapes that are carried with an urgency of purpose rather than meaningless noodling and pedal switching.
Hearing such a stellar album ten years after it was recorded, inevitably leads to questions of what could have been. This is normal but what’s more important is appreciating that this album even exists to begin with and that hopefully through the power of the internet it will find its way into hearts of people who will appreciate its craftsmanship regardless of whether or not they saw Ghostwood in 2007.
https://open.spotify.com/album/2iQkgoCAqOWYWxnoajBRrL?si=JnPww2BWQnmkIVQBCOidyQ