GHOST

3.5 stars. GHOST were a six piece psychedelic/folk band from Japan who officially broke up in 2014. Their final live and studio albums were both released in 2007. An eight album run starting in 1990 with a consistent six piece lineup. While this is my least favourite of the four records I own by them, It's basically because this is the most straight up folk record of the four. It's almost like on this sophomore release they decided to get more serious and mature and as a result dropped the krautrock vibe from the debut, along with some of the gimmicks.

A 48 minute album, this was released in 1992 and features ten tracks. Vocals are male and in english. The song titles reveal that psychedelic spirit like "A Day Of Stoned Sunshine In The Union Zoo" which is where the album cover comes in. My favourite track is the longest "Orange Sunshine" at over 7 1/2 minutes. "Mind Hill" the closer is another psyche title. The opener "People Get Freedom" is the shortest at under 2 minutes and it's ethnic sounding and sparse before we get the title track and music that is more to my liking.

I just like their "sound" and spirit. A "live and let live" attitude embracing the spiritual. Psychedelic sunshine my friends. I'm bumping this one up as I truly enjoyed this one, despite feeling they did much better later on. While it never seems like I'm listening to a six piece band, I appreciate the flavours that are brought to the table, especially the flute. Great band!

GHOST are a six piece band out of Japan playing a psychedelic/folk brand of music. That krautrock spirit is here as well with those drugged out vocals on the second half of the album. The music is not in a hurry. Plenty of flute and percussion with vocals in english. They had a pretty good run releasing eight studio albums from 1990 to 2007. I am fortunate to own four of those. My first was way back in 2007 with "Lama Rabi Rabi" but it would be nine years before I would visit them again with their "Hypnotic Underworld" record. Both strong albums, so the search was on for more resulting in the acquisitions of this the debut and the followup "Second Time Around".

While there is electric guitar, sax, piano and electronics I feel they are buried or sparse. This album really is dominated by percussion, flute, acoustic guitar and vocals. The standout track for me is "Ballad Of Summer Rounder" an almost 11 minute trip my friends. I should mention as well that there are some inventive moments on this record. This isn't all trippy all the time. The vocal arrangements on "Moungod Te Deum" are interesting. Almost an "aummm" style to them but different.

And how about the opening of this record on "Sun Is Tangging" where we hear this soft distant flute. Do not be fooled into either turning up the volume, or putting your ear next to the speaker. They want you to do that! There is an explosion of sound that goes on for a while and it's the loudest section on the record. Like a blast of yells, beats and more blended together and then turned up a notch hoping to scare the naive listener. Yeah it worked! Thanks a lot.

This is a special record that even triggers emotion like early on my favourite track "Ballad Of Summer Rounder". I'm looking forward to spending time with the followup next week. As for this one, it's easily a four star record in my world, and it was great to hear their beginnings, where it all started.

Ghost was quite active in nineties releasing 6 albums, when in 2000-decade only two. In 2000 decade their style changed more electric, don't know was that in connection to their line-up change. This was their last album before their 7 years hiatus and then Masaki Batoh's announcement that they're disbanded. I think this album is their most experimental & also darkest album.

When CD-version started really acoustic and more old Ghost-style piece 'Motherly Bluster', vinyl version goes in the same way as previous 'Hypnotic Underworld'. Starting piece 'Hemicyclic Anthelion' lasts almost half hour and is really experimental! It starts with echoed noise, but just before four minutes changes really acoustic. There are both kind of periods after that, one acoustic period is really melodic and jazzy. Very interesting, contemporary classical piece-style composition that caries it's whole lenght. Next 'Water Door Yellow Gate' is the greatest piece in this album. Tympani plays bolero rhythm whole through it and in the back there is choir that sounds as made in mellotron. Also there is guitar that is somewhere middle of Fripp's & Michael Karoli- style. In next 'Gareki No Toshi' tympani continues beating faster, but this instrumental is little bit too long with no changes.

Second vinyl starter 'Motherly Bluster' is really much old Ghost sounding, beautiful acoustic piece. 'Caledonia' is version of the piece of old experimental band 'Cromagnon'. It reminds a lot of the original, but naturally sounds more modern. Anyway I listened first time the original version and it really didn't sound 1969 at all! Really going to listen this bands only album from that year! But this album ends with acoustic and sad 'Grisaille'. In the end song rises into other level with really great guitar solo with back of some mellotron sounding keyboard.

This album don't rise into level of the greatest nineties Ghost albums, but I think it was really great they went forward into new direction. Really that directions wasn't bad. So sad band didn't continue after this great album, hard to believe their record company Drag City would have pushed them into some other direction what they wanted.

After releasing two promising albums and one live album Japanese psych-folk band Ghost matured into really great band in their album 'Lama Rabi Rabi'. The greatness continued in this album. For some reason they released same time also other album 'Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet'. I have listened it only once, so I can't now say how these albums differ, but according to review made here in PA it probably is quite same sounding. Maybe that album is more political than this.

Album starter 'Regenesis' reminds me a lot 'Pearls Before Swine'. It has really great trombone & flute. Second piece is version from Stones 'Live With Me'. When I was listening first time this album, I didn't recognise this song as cover-song. They could have put it into their own, if they just had changed words. On the other hand this version would have fitted really well into Stones 'Their Satanic Majesties Request'-album. Next 'Soma' is the greatest piece in this album, it's sung in Japanese, also it has really great harmonium sounding keyboard, cello and banjo. I am not familiar with Japanese traditional music, but I believe this has influences from there. Very beautiful! 'Daggma' is really delicate marimba & vibraphone instrumental piece with cello.

Tittle song, that is album longest piece, is at first really acoustic, but in the middle there comes electric guitar and it changes little bit Mike Oldfield-style. There comes also really great effected vocals. 'Obiit 1961' is again really delicate, but sungen piece. Right after that comes same kind of instrumental piece 'Tempera Tune'. 'Fukeiga' brings you a feeling, that you're sailing in the sunny sea, but changes in the middle very intensive and again there is in electric guitar some Oldfield. But in the end comes again calmer part with really awesome trumpet! 'Sad Shakers' sounds again very folk influencing, but has also really great Gilmour-style guitar playing. Last piece ends the album again very sea-like atmosphere.

It's really strange I am making the first review of this masterpiece! This really is not nineties sounding at all, but really not also something retro. Ghost really found sound of their own in the middle of nineties. This album is full of beautiful melodies and has also really great taste in those interesting songs arrangements. Really timeless album!

It's quite amazing I am making first review of this very interesting bands first album (there are only 10 ratings about this)! Well, it just shows, how much there are interesting bands in the world that have threat to disappear in the minds of the people. It seems in 2007 some PA members 'found' the band and after that every now and then somebody has made one or two reviews a year. This Ghost (it wasn't the first and really not the last) started already in 1984, but released this album not until 1990. Have to say I am a big fan of sixties psych, but never been so much into new psych (well I guess I haven't really heard many clearly new psych bands, I think there is always that space element that I haven't found very interesting in most cases). Anyway this band has very little 'space' in it's music and comes more into sixties psych (they even had spent collective life as their predecessors did). On the other hand I would not call this band just retro, they have really a fresh style although it differs a lot of the common style of nineties.

This album starts really great way! First the listener is scared with loud noises, but soon 'Sun Is Tagging' changes into very acoustic and creates very warm and mysterious atmosphere. You just go direct into soft psychedelia of sixties! 'Guru In the Echo' goes into little electric direction with really great, psychedelic electric guitar. This very catchy piece reminds a little Can's 'Soundtracks'-album. In 'Moungod Te Deum' direction goes really experimental. It has birds voices and some very strong mantra into it. Really love that piece also! But after these three great pieces direction starts to go a little bit mediocre. All the rest of the pieces are mostly quite calm. 'I've Been Flying' is fully acoustic and very beautiful. 'Ballad Of Summer Rounder' continues same way, but in the middle there comes drums. In the end there are little bit chaotic piece, which of course make this over ten minutes piece more interesting, but it lasts too long when nothing really happening there. The second part of 'Moungod' serie is really meditative with wind sounds and totally acoustic instruments. Last part of 'Moungod' is quite experimental and has again mantra-style vocals. Last 'Rakshu' is very sedative piece, maybe little bit too long.

This debut album is really promising, but not showing the full potential of this interesting band. Really I am not wondering at all that Drag City decided to take this band into their label in 1996 and released their greatest album 'Lama Rabi Rabi'. Although band has released their latest studio album in 2007, it was 2014 when band told to be disbanded. So sad, there are not really too much this kind of bands today. I would have given the album four stars if the greatness of first three songs had continued (maybe even five), but now this is three stars album.

- The first review -

In fact I'm listening for the very first time to a psychedelic rock album from Japan (I'm much deeper into Japan's symphonic prog). This is, as you guessed, the second album of Ghost, which is a six-piece group playing acoustically oriented, folky and hazy psychedelic rock sung in English. I was charmed at the first listening! The male voice isn't anything spectacular, a bit frail actually, but it suits perfectly to the music. Reminds me a bit of the vocals of Wishbone Ash.

The 48-minute album contains ten tracks. The opener 'People Get Freedom' is the shortest (1:45) and the most minimalistic. At first there's just a kantele-sounding instrument, soon joined by melancholic vocals and later on some psychedelic sonic elements. The title track is a slow-paced, dreamy song with soft percussion and hazy sounds, perhaps comparable to the More-era Pink Floyd around 1969, or The Doors at their softest. One member of the group plays flute, sax and theremin. Saxophone isn't much heard throughout this album, but flute increases the folk touch in several songs. Also the use of acoustic guitar and hand percussion is very reminiscent of the more psychedelic part of the late 60's/early 70's British folk rock era, bands such as Forest or Incredible String Band.

'Forthcoming from the Inside' is a 6-minute song with a slight jam approach. Here the drums are more muscular, and the vocals are more intense; think of Jim Morrison telling a story (although the chorus gets repeated quite a lot). 'Higher Order' calms back to the folk haziness, with a lovely Medieval atmosphere. 'Awake in a Muddle' is a slow, peaceful song driven by Ant Phillips-reminding acoustic guitar and some beautiful flute melodies. 'A Day of the Stoned Sky in the Union Zoo' (what a title!) is another great song full of mesmerizing, slow-paced melodies and the high-pitched flute evoking forestial, mystic images.

'First Drop of the Sea' is a very calm, dreamy, slow and moody song. I just love this stuff! Another association is Tim Buckley at his calmest. 'Under the Sun' is the weakest track, a half-baked campfire doodling with some wordless singing. After a mediocre song the final track, slow and calm 'Mind Hill', ends the album beautifully, with piano in the lead role. Oh my, this album really was a happy discovery for me! Warmly recommended to everyone enjoying hazy, folky psychedelic rock and acoustically oriented artists such as Anthony Phillips.

"Hypnotic Underworld" truly is a special album that will please all you Psychedelic fans out there. I like that there's some variety on here yet it doesn't drift from that Psychedelic sub-genre. We get mellotron on five tracks along with plenty of flute, electronics and sax. Very cool too that they cover a Syd Barrett tune along with an obscure EARTH & FIRE song.

"Hypnotic Underworld" is an interesting choice to start the album as it's a four piece suite worth around 24 minutes of music. Interesting because the majority of it is sparse and ambient bringing to mind Miles Davis but instead of trumpet it's the sax that is crying out on and off throughout Part 1. And while I thought of Miles right away this is much more Psychedelic and Haunting than Miles. Rumbling drums, sax and experimental sounds come and go during this 13 1/2 minute opening part. Part 2 is similar but we get a rhythm and also an Eastern vibe. Piano joins in later and it turns more intense as well. Part 3 opens with electronics and I like when it kicks in with a heavier sound and those MOODY BLUES-like backing vocals. Vocals follow as the backing vocals continue. Nice. Part 4 is less than a minute of an intense drum-led piece.

"Hazy Paradise" is a B-side of an EARTH & FIRE release and hazy is the word. It's like being stoned on a sunny day walking in a field. The vocals and sound are so uplifting. Love this song! Check out the guitar 2 minutes in and how good does this sound before 4 minutes with the mellotron, vocals, guitar and drums. Exhilarating! "Kiseichukan" features bass and intricate sounds including the sound of water as flute plays over top. The vocals are spoken. "Piper" has flute and little else in the ballad-like intro. There's a bit of Celtic vibe here with the tin flute. It kicks into gear a minute in with strummed guitar, organ, drum and more. It settles right down as the flute returns and vocals arrive, piano too. It kicks in again as contrasts continue. Love the aggressive guitar after 3 minutes as well as the mellotron a minute after that.

"Ganagmanag" is such a trippy tune that I can't help but think of the kings of trippy in AGITATION FREE. Love the sound here. The flute plays over top as they seem to just jam away. So good! Piano joins in before 2 1/2 minutes. The flute stops after 5 minutes changing the flavour here. Then the tempo picks up before 8 minutes. There's a UNIVERS ZERO vibe with that powerful and dark piano play. "Feed" is another excellent track that reminds me of FLOYD("Meddle") with the strummed guitar and psychedelic mood. Reserved vocals join in then it turns more powerful. I like this one a lot, especially when that opening theme is repeated each time. Mellotron late.

"Holy High" has tin flute and a Celtic flavour with plenty of energy. Vocals join in before a minute and it's either the flute or vocals leading the way but not both. Check out the mellotron late to end it as the flute and vocals have both stopped. "Dominoes/ Celebration For The Gray Days" is a Barrett cover from his second studio album. This is such a hazy tune and the vocals are relaxed like the song. A change though 3 1/2 minutes in as the soundscape starts to swirl as vocal melodies can be heard. Kind of cool actually. Deep pulsating sounds join in before 5 minutes followed by heavy drums as it continues to build. Great tune!

This was my favourite album to listen to last week, it just fills that psychedelic area of my brain otherwise known as the black hole. Fvourite songs include the opening suite along with "Hazy Paradise" and "Feed". Japan has had many great Psychedelic bands since the late sixties but GHOST might be the best of them all.

The Japanese psychedelic folk band Ghost is at its best on this album, their third, released in 1996. Acoustic guitarist/vocalist Masaki Batoh is the spiritual leader of this very spiritual band, always at the center of a sound that varies from quiet and pastoral to loud and aggressive on this album. The most dominant instruments are hand percussion, flutes, acoustic guitar, and piano, to varying degrees from number to number. A band that comes to mind that is similar would be Jade Warrior, especially on their early instrumentals. The wonderful thing about Ghost is how they sound like they were plucked out of another age and dimension... the kind of music you can imagine floating through the air in ancient times. And I believe that of all their albums, this one achieves that sound the best.

"Mastillah" opens the album as a perfect mood setter, floating and drifting. "RabiRabi" carries the same drifting feeling but with a much more aggressive, stormy arrangement with loud electric bass, searing electric guitar feedback and insistent chanting. "Into the Alley" takes things back down, as Batoh gives us a simple sung ballad on acoustic guitar. "Marrakech" goes back into darker realms with a distorted singing voice and plodding rhythm on acoustic instruments. "Who Found a Lost Rose in the Warship?" sounds like a long lost folk song incorporating banjo, jews harp and either a recorder or a piccolo, along with a sad sung melody. "Mex Square Blue" keeps the banjo going, with a recorder melody taking the lead.

"My Hump is a Shell" is one of the most striking numbers here, a brief instrumental duet between acoustic guitar and Theremin, really really pretty stuff. "Bad Bone" is the most rock-oriented song here, with a memorable bass riff carrying the song along. "Abyssinia" brings in a sitar (I only wish there was more sitar on this album) and another very distinctly Eastern folk melody in the vocals. "Agate Scape", the nearly 11-minute penultimate track, is a wonderful display of building intensity and tension. It begins as a gentle folk ballad with acoustic guitar, bells, and piano - but around the three minute mark, it very slowly builds layers of instruments, slowly gets louder, and slowly adds dissonance over the course of several instrumental minutes, before returning to the quiet beginning. The final track, "Summer's Ashen Fable", concludes the album with a gentle piano-led folk melody, quietly bringing things to a close.

Although there is a good variety of sounds on this album, as well as a good mix of loud and quiet numbers, once you've heard the first minute or so of any track, you're not going to be surprised by the rest of it. Despite the occasional aggressive moments, this is more of a meditative album than anything else. But in that capacity, this is one of the more seductive and emotional albums I've come across in recent years. Masaki Batoh is a visionary musician seemingly transported from another age, and he has led Ghost to a near-masterpiece here. Falls short of five stars only because a few of the songs sound a little too similar to other songs on the album, but this is still one to check out if you love acoustic psychedelia or Eastern folk music.

Ghost are an inspired psychedelic acoustic folk band from Japan, led by acoustic guitarist/singer Masaki Batoh. While their later material incorporated more electric instruments and spacey improvisations, this is Ghost in their early days, playing the kind of ancient spiritual music reminiscent of the original Amon Duul band. Temple Stone is their third release, nominally a "live album", but actually more of a re visitation of some of their early repertoire in a new setting, namely an actual temple. To my ears, this is the way this kind of music was meant to be heard; compared to the original renditions on their first two albums, these versions feel MUCH more warm and authentic. In fact, the arrangements are so different, they may as well be all new songs.

Using the ambiance of the temple as almost its own instrument, the band takes advantage of the natural feel of the room with reverberating acoustic guitars, impassioned vocals, lots of flutes, what sounds like a bowed bass, occasional piano, and hand percussion. This is the music you might expect to overhear if you were passing by a Buddhist temple. This is Spirit Music; it's the real thing.

For the most part, the songs themselves aren't particularly stunning, but the mood they create cannot be denied. My absolute favorite is "Moungod Asleep", a very simple number with a repeating piano figure (absent in the original version on the debut album) and a simple folk melody that imparts a deep sense of spiritual longing. Things occasionally get pretty chaotic, as on the track "Blood Red River", in which free-form banging on pianos, percussion (including real drums this time) gone awry, and shrieking vocals create a disturbing atmosphere. But for the most part, the album is meditative, mellow, and melancholy.

What a sacred, solemn, but weird atmosphere this is!

Please forget our long experience about psychedelic / space rock scene. When Jim Russell aka Finnforest introduce this band to me (THANKS JIM!), the name of this band could let me chill. At first, I think a Japanese GHOST should not be a phantom or a vision but a spirit itself. GHOST always reminds me the Japanese religious history, that we must believe and take care of the dead spirits. For the dead some of Japanese everyday read OKYO (a religious sutra) and believe that the dead spirits in another world should always support us now living here. This concert is not like a typical one but full of ANOTHER atmosphere.

Well look at the sleeve and you can find a monotone Great Buddha image (DAIBUTSU in Japanese). Now we should be knocked out by the spiritual sleeve and image. As ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE shows on their sleeves, a Great Buddha is a great symbol of all Buddhist and most of our (Japanese) minds. Please listen, and feel...basically awesome, solemn percussions can encircle us. About 5 minutes later, a shamisen (Japanese banjo), wabue (Japanese flute) and bells can make thier sounds heavier and deeper. In such a eccentric music, weird percussive sounds should be alive. Gradually our palpitation with the atmosphere should be greater and greater. Even electric guitars or keyboards, as everyone thinks as typical instruments for rock music, can be noise shooters or storytellers of GHOST. I consider totally this long track can't be called as a song but can be defined as an illusion. There are lots of Japanese instruments as above mentioned, in that especially wabue and various percussions should make this track serious and seraphic. And a piano coming here after 17 minutes can push this sounds toward an upper stage. Electric sounds should NOT be self-assertive or in front of all instruments. Here they should be only noises with adding some solemn flavour. In the middle part avantgarde and sharply noisy explosion can fly and blow over our head. In another world we can't realize what happen but can feel cold, keen-edged, and GHOSTLY wind. Over the noisy society GHOSTs can fly and dance elegantly...I always feel with listening to this track. Someone may say over 56 minute song should be boring. However, I can not think so. YES, this track is not a song but a wind or an air, and should make our heart palpitate as an earthquake, at least for me. Indeed there's no Mokugyo (Buddhistic percussion) or Rin (Buddhistic bell) but every percussion can play each religious part. Furthermore each instrument, without assertion, can support this track under the earth. (Even a saxophone or another horn can play on the background as one of their collaborators.) I'm sure everyone joining the concert should be happy with jumping and tripping over ANOTHER WORLD. Now I can a bit feel this fantastic and awesome atmosphere. I'm very happy. Really, really I can't breathe till the last piano vibrations...

This album is, I wanna say, exactly another Japanese psychedelic culture.