Talking To Ghosts

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This week on Poltergeiests! Michael reminisces about Front 242, then gets into some neo-folk with Sturmpercht, while Wes goes black metal with Sunwølf before dipping into the gothy stylings of Tuxedo Gleam!

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This week we talked to the wonderful folks over at ∆AIMON! We talked about origin stories, Sesame Street, why hasn't LORN emailed Brant, and what it's like to score an MMA docuseries! 

You can find Talking To Ghosts on Facebook and Twitter! Also, don't forget to apply for The Ghosties! The application deadline to be considered, or to vote, is January 20th!

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2014's Top 10 Episodes!

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Author & Punisher show at the Tonic Lounge

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Episode 18 - Jen Van Meter

This week we got to talk to Jen Van Meter, the woman behind Hopeless Savages as well as a variety of DC and Marvel titles! We talked about artistic time management, writers living with writers, 1984 novelization of the movie of the book, and why do fans want you to sleep in a van? Also, please forgive the weird little glitches in the audio. I have no idea what caused them and was not able to fix them.

Also! We totally forgot in our outro to do the thank yous, so thanks to Kelly Bouges, Distorted Memory, and I Die: You Die for sharing last weeks episode!

You can find Talking To Ghosts on Facebook and Twitter!

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This week we sat down and a had a nice chat with Winnipeg wonder, Jeremy Pillipow of Distorted Memory fame! We talked hardware failures, loving the wrong Suicide Commando, and archaic modes of music delivery!

You can find Talking To Ghosts on Facebook and Twitter!

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Poltergeists: Week of November 3, 2014

This week on Poltergeists Michael talks about Psy'Aviah and the new [:SITD:], while Wes gets weird with Gazelle Twin and What Moon Things!

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What a treat! What an absolute treat! This week we have four people on at once, plus us! We got us some WMX, we got some Statiqbloom, we got some Cervello Elettronico, and we got some Blush Response! We talked about house parties, cock fighting, and mic stand sodomy, so there's that. Also it's sort of a short interview, so you get some extra long talking on the outro, where we discuss I Die: You Die's excellent grocery service. You can find Talking to Ghosts on Facebook and Twitter. Also, don't forget to subscribe and review on iTunes!

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Poltergeists - Week of October 20, 2014

Poltergeists is a biweekly feature in which Michael and Wes share tracks that they have had on repeat over the past two weeks.

Michael

Chrysalide - “Keep Calm”

“Keep breathing, you’re strong, I need you beside me.”

The new Chrysalide album Personal Revolution is everything that I knew it would be! It is unique in sound and presentation and maintains a constant message that I wholly support. When we spoke to Chrysalide they said that they were turning this album inwards into their own personal issues and focusing on changing themselves at the roots of the problem - which is the only way to combat something - personal revolution.

“Hold on, Hold on even if your world is fucked up.”

This song is catchy and brilliantly executed, I really love all of the elements that come in and out of the mix. From the spoken vocals, to the robot overdub, everything falls into place just right to create somber chaos.

Chrysalide - “Question Everything”

Another Chrysalide track! I love it so much. This was the first preview track released from the new album and honestly I was kind of worried that it was so different than the last album, but I see now that it fits so well with the sounds used in the rest of the album and that it is a great song to preview because the message is not only meaningful, but an example of what the album will be primarily about.

Wes

Chrysalide - “We Are Not Cursed”

Y’all know I had to talk about the new Chrysalide. It’s no secret that Chrysalide is one of my favorite acts out there, and I’ve said many times that I think Don’t Be Scared, It’s About Life is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard.

I’ve listened to the new album over and over since they sent us a review copy, and for the most part I love it. I chose this particular track to highlight because I think it represents the whole of the album fairly well. Chrysalide is excellent at building danceable tracks that blend in enough interesting sound design to keep them exciting, and this track is no exception. The lyrical content reflects the themes of the album - the need to self reflect, responsibility for the self before demanding change from the outside. These themes threaten to be over trodden, but Chrysalide manages to breathe life into them by keeping the song personal and genuine, rather than as a flag of pretension.

BADBADNOTGOOD  - “Velvet”

Guys, BADBADNOTGOOD is my jam. They released their third album, titled III earlier this year, and I have been bumping it on repeat since I finally picked it up last week. Then, I see that they put out a single, “Velvet” on Bandcamp. And folks, I am a sucker for those snappy, grooved beats and that sharp electric piano. I am a sucker for those whining horns, and that clean bass. I love how the song starts out with kind of a quick groove, a move that sounds like it would work for the opening theme of a family show in the mid 80s. I love how that transitions into a song that wouldn't be out of place in a dystopian John Carpenter movie in the middle. And I love how it flips the script again, moving into an e-piano solo that, with increasingly frantic drums, just drives the whole thing home. If you haven’t checked out BADBADNOTGOOD yet, take this opportunity.

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Episode 14 - Ludovico Technique and Grendel

We had the opportunity to chat with Ludovico Technique and Grendel while they were busy ROCKING THE FREE WORLD. Before their excellent Portland show we talked about music philosophies, whether or not selling out your soul for 20 additional fans is worth it, and club curses.

Talking to Ghosts can be found on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe on iTunes!

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POLTERGEISTS - WEEK OF OCTOBER 6, 2014

Michael

VANIISH - “Merge”

<a href="http://crypticpassage.bandcamp.com/album/fake-as-fuck" data-mce-href="http://crypticpassage.bandcamp.com/album/fake-as-fuck">Fake As Fuck by Fake Snake</a>

Vaniish is a great project from the brains of Veil Veil Vanish. I really enjoy this track especially because it is fun to dance to and really embodies the type of goth rock that I like. I am not the biggest fan of goth rock so when one breaks through the thick wall of industrial sheet metal that I put up with the blackest of metal thorns it is really a great thing! “Merge” is my favorite track and something that I pump in the car on the way to gath night! I suggest this for fans of All Gone Dead, The Church, and The Exploding Boy. Also I would loosely suggest to fans of Placebo if anything just for sexiness.

Youth Code - “For I Am Cursed”

No embed yet sorry!

Youth Code (of course!) has been all over the place in the last few months and rightfully so! I have seen them only once and it was one of the best live shows that I have ever seen. The new EP and An Overture recently came out and it is, again of fucking course, awesome! One of my favorite tracks from the new set of songs is “For I am Cursed.” This track is epic in every way and really hits me right in those dancing shoes! I like everything about this track, it has a really nice build up and break down towards the end and a great catchy hook. I would suggest this to EVERYONE!

Wes

Fake Snake - “Toxic Wave“

<a href="http://crypticpassage.bandcamp.com/album/fake-as-fuck" data-mce-href="http://crypticpassage.bandcamp.com/album/fake-as-fuck">Fake As Fuck by Fake Snake</a>

Fake Snake is a power electronics group hailing from Tempe, Arizona. Their song “Toxic Wave” is off of their album Fake As Fuck, which melts together rolling droning synths and pounding distorted drum tracks. I particularly like the track “Toxic Wave” because it melds these noisy abrasive elements in a wave that flows almost into a witchy sort of groove, blending heavily distorted screaming with a rolling, drippy bassline that pulls you along through the tightly controlled chaos of the percussive elements.

Rural Alberta Advantage - "45/33"

Rural Alberta Advantage is a band that tends to sit in my Sad Bastard Music playlists; their well-written lyrics are sung with a sense of sadness that I have a hard time finding in industrial music. The progressions are melancholic, and it ends on an epic note that brings me over the edge; it makes me feel and that’s all I ask from it.

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Episode 13 - Wolves In The Throne Room

We had ourselves a nice little sit down a while back with Wolves In The Throne Room during their West Coast tour. We talked tour stories, how to smuggle merch across borders, plastic bottles, and why in an age devoid of secrets they are so heavily mythologized.

Talking To Ghosts can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

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Poltergeists - Week of September 22, 2014

Poltergeists is a biweekly feature in which Michael and Wes select tracks that they have had on repeat over the past two weeks.

Michael

hologram_ - “Parasite / Paradox / Paralysis”

<a href="http://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/geometrical-keys" data-mce-href="http://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/geometrical-keys">geometrical keys by hologram_</a>

Hologram_ is a great band that kind of appeared out of the Ant-Zen/Audiotrauma camp earlier this year and to be honest I give everything on those labels a listen almost right away. There is a good chance that it will be something for me. Hologram_ was no exception - Parasite / Paradox / Paralysis is a track that hits me particularly hard in that make-me-move-place. I really enjoy the layers of this track and the way it builds from a pretty stable noise-y dance beat into a really fun song to dance to - especially in the later half, which I would consider the Paradox region of the song.

100blumen - “la fin absolue du monde”

<a href="http://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/surveillance" data-mce-href="http://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/surveillance">surveillance by 100blumen</a>

Guess what!? Another goddamn Ant-Zen song that I love! this one is from a few years ago, but it is still a song that I put on every once and awhile and love. A bit more somber than my first choice (above,) but I really love the mood of this song. It builds so well from a very ambient spoken word atmosphere to a noise driven paradise of rich toms and glitches. It is a song that I really don’t mind waiting 2 minutes for it to kick in to the  rhythm section. Do yourself a favor and give it a full listen, close your eyes, and turn it up really loud on your crappy computer speakers - lose yourself in it’s somber ambient happiness. (La Fin Absolue du Monde = “The Absolute End of the World”)

Wes

Fraunhofer Diffraction - “Asphyxia”

<a href="http://fdiffraction.bandcamp.com/album/vice" data-mce-href="http://fdiffraction.bandcamp.com/album/vice">Vice by Fraunhofer Diffraction</a>

Fraunhofer Diffraction is a project out of Moscow that bends towards witch house, if that’s a thing that’s still useful to say anymore. By blending big saw pads, hip-hop style beats built from 808s with heavy reverb, and pitched up and dragged out vocal samples “Asphyxia” hits all the things that I loved about early witch house in an effective way; it doesn’t feel played out or affected, rather, the style is embraced to its fullest. The beat is heavy and brooding, and invokes images of foggy clubs with manic strobes, while the samples are ethereal, lifting the songs mood only to be cut down by stabbing synth lines.

Myrkur - “Nattens Barn”

<a href="http://myrkur.bandcamp.com/album/myrkur" data-mce-href="http://myrkur.bandcamp.com/album/myrkur">Myrkur by Myrkur</a>

The more of this black metal stuff I listen to the more I want to listen to it. This particular release is from Danish solo artist Myrkur, and the amount that this woman puts together as a solo project is amazing. The track starts out with choral vocals, which fade into a blast of drums and shredding guitars. The woman we just heard harmonizing with herself then comes in growling and screaming, and every single aspect of the instrumentation. It’s one thing to be really good at one instrument and alright at a bunch of others - I think many musicians in guitar driven bands end up becoming at least mediocre multi-instrumentalists out of necessity - but to be able to sing in the manner Myrkur does, as well as scream, shred on the guitars, and play precise, well timed drum lines is an insane feat. The entire album is worth multiple listens.

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Episode 12 - Tactical Sekt

This is our last entry from the Terminus Files. It feels sad to put a cap on all the wonderful interviews that we managed to get while at Terminus, but on the bright side, there's always next year.

This week we talked with Anthony from Tactical Sekt. Tactical Sekt has been a big influence on both of us hear at TTG INDUSTRIES, and getting the chance to see him perform, then sit down and talk with him was amazing. We discussed changes in technology, why social media shat in its own bed, and what movies made everyone cry recently.

You can find Talking to Ghosts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and our new website!

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POLTERGEISTS: WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 8TH 2014

Poltergeists is a biweekly feature in which Michael and Wes select tracks that they have had on repeat over the past two weeks.

Michael

As a personal caveat I wanted to just say that these aren’t the songs that have been bumping hard in my ride for the last two weeks (those would be mostly weird hip hop that Wes gave me and more Dimmu Borgir). Driving home tonight I was thinking about all of the songs that I had heard this week and tried to narrow it down just two - but when I sat down to write this post I started feeling nostalgic and two really great images came to mind.  

Skinny Puppy - “Cult”

Do you have a track that you randomly pops into your head at any given time, no matter what the mood is, no matter where you are? I remember walking in the gardens of Millenium Park in Chicago just as the sun was setting and the moon became apparent in the summer sky and whispering “Crescent moon, I’m cutting through, paste up warnings filled sky, smoking embers I remember, time and time again to try - to live in light.” My partner turned to me and asked what I was whispering. After telling her I was slightly embarrassed to have recited all of the words.

This song definitely hit me hard when I was younger. I will never forget it.

“This is a story of permanence, This is a story of unchained momentum, This is a story of everything we ever wanted.”

I like this song because it gives me the feeling of being young (which I am, I know.) It is such a nice homage to the way when you feel when you are young and mad and you don’t know how to feel about it. That first break up. That first real life thing that went wrong. The feeling that everything is falling apart around you and you just kind of want to stand in the middle of the ocean forever yelling at nothing. “I tell myself that I know that I don’t want to be the man who tells the stories of all the things that I know, ripped from my hands before I truly grasp them, and I know that if we shut down in stages then let this be the last time that I know.”

Wes

My Fictions - “Stranger”

Can you feel that? Man, I can feel that. I can feel that all the way into my bones.

It was really hard for me to choose a song to pick. I’ve been listening to the album Stranger Songs over and over, and any one of the songs that appear on it could have wound up on this list. I chose to highlight this song because of how well it exemplifies the parts of post-hardcore that I love the most. The beats are slow and brooding; the guitars alternate between frantic, spacey tremolo picking and depressive low riffs; and the vocals are so raw and emotive that it is impossible for me to not be carried away into the feeling of the song. To top it off, it carries out on a sample of a Leonard Cohen interview that works as a through line for the whole album.

Kassandra Nunes  - “Show Me Love”

<a href="http://catussrecords.bandcamp.com/album/show-me-love-single" data-mce-href="http://catussrecords.bandcamp.com/album/show-me-love-single">Show Me Love (Single) by Kassandra Nunes</a>

I think trap has really settled into its place as filling the role that two years ago dubstep filled. It is an overdone EDM genre that took most its queues from a culture that the producers were totally detached from. The EDM variety is mostly bad at this point, and trap is starting to seep into everything around it.

However, in the song “Show Me Love” Kassandra Nunes takes this trap influence and bends it in a very positive way. Where the vocals and lyrics could have worked in a traditional pop setting, Nunes takes cues from the darker sounds of trap; the song is spacey, with deep bass kicks and snare shuffles pulling the more upbeat vocals and synths down into a state of melancholia. “Show Me Love” seems to show how well it can work when you start twisting tropes and experiment with moving them into settings you don’t expect to hear them in.

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EPISODE 11 - 3TEETH

Another entry in the Terminus Files! This time, we talked to 3Teeth! Discussed was the influence that Jennifer Lopez played on their highly acclaimed album, castle parties, and how not all guitar industrial is KMFDM. In the intro Michael and I reveal some of the things we almost called the podcast, and in the outro we set forth a mission for you, our dearest listeners.

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Poltergeists is a biweekly feature in which Michael and Wes each present two tracks that they have been listening to. Michael

Dimmu Borgir, as you may know by now is a behemoth of a band as far as Black Metal goes. Many elitists will tell you that the Borg' has not been true Black Metal since their second album, and they might be right! Their first album For All Tid (english: For All Time) is one that I consistently go back to when I need a fix for that special dark place in my heart. Det Nye Riket (english: "The New Kingdom"), the opening track, is a great example of the diversity of Black Metal at it's roots. The brooding orchestral lulling of the introduction brings me back to an ancient place in my mind filled with dark forests and snowy mountain peaks masked in the morning fog. The orchestra breaks to an equally hymnal piano with soft Norwegian words raising a new kingdom to Satan,"King of the strong." This is an element that I think a lot of modern day Black Metal has ultimately lost.

<a href="http://ritualz.bandcamp.com/album/hypermotion-x-2" data-mce-href="http://ritualz.bandcamp.com/album/hypermotion-x-2">HYPERMOTION X by RITUALZ</a>

"Rhythmic Release" by Ritualz has been on frequent rotation for me lately. I find this track very soothing in a lot of ways. The sample that is used, "Hear me now, all crimes should be treasured if they bring me pleasure somehow," is pulled from one of my favorite Cradle of Filth albums - Cruelty and the Beast - and it brings a deep seeded nostalgia to the surface to meet my newer fascination with Witch House and the new wave of darker experimental music. "Rhythmic Release" begins with a long period of ambience that I think really sets the tone of the song well. The way the vocal sample comes in, dragging and cut up to perfectly match the tone of the song plays perfectly with the subtle synth work and ambience of this track. This is an older Ritualz track - in the time table of witch house releases anyway - but one that I recently discovered and have fallen in love with. Wes

<a href="http://thetruepanopticon.bandcamp.com/album/roads-to-the-north" data-mce-href="http://thetruepanopticon.bandcamp.com/album/roads-to-the-north">Roads To The North by Panopticon</a>

I do not have a huge amount of experience with black metal. Much of my knowledge of black metal comes from brief bouts in the Cascadian sound mixed with occasionally trolling the black metal tag on Bandcamp. One thing that I have noticed in these brief foray's is a large influence from Northern European folk music. What I found interesting about Panopticon is that they took this idea of folk influenced, low production music, and bent it towards Appalachia. The trilogy of songs that underlies the center of Roads To The North exemplify this reinterpretation of black metal's Norwegian roots starting with melancholy banjo, mandolin and fiddle track that almost listens like an Iron and Wine song before bursting into a folky ecstasy. From there it transitions into the more traditional black metal blast beats and tremolo picking, but the moments of American folk are what really shine through and force me to think about the tropes and traditions of other music I hear and how they could be bent as Panopticon bends black metal.

<a href="http://anticon.bandcamp.com/album/gravel" data-mce-href="http://anticon.bandcamp.com/album/gravel">Gravel by D33J</a>

I happened to stumble across future bass a couple years ago thanks to a DJ Shadow set that was posted to his Soundcloud page. This started a rabbit hole of burrowing through tags and recommendations on Bandcamp that ended with me amassing a frightening amount of bassy, ambient and occasionally trappy music. As I continued to explore the genre, I found that it had already begun to stagnate for me; I was hearing the same drippy lasers and the same echoing claps at every turn. "Slow" by D33J has presented me with a refreshing take on future bass' tropes while managing to avoid its pitfalls. Thick low bass with delayed drops of synths and melancholic pads mix with low-fi claps and vocal samples to create a beautiful atmosphere that encourages the listener to melt into the artist's creation.