Ghostly's Thomas Meluch Set To Deliver Debut Album
Kranky is generally known for its out-there ambient music. This album, ‘Precis,’ however is nothing of the sort. Due out October 16th, Benoit Pioulard -- or Ghostly International’s (home of Mobius Band, Dabrye and more) Thomas Meluch as he’s known to most -- pulls together dark folk with twists of electro and pop savvy, deeply texturized by the sounds of ten years worth of stolen sounds (see below) and guest appearances by the dulcimer his father gave him for Christmas. Lured in by his seductive, velvet voice, the listener travels through a beautiful, shadowy personal landscape where the guitar flirts with a laptop as vignettes about pain and deconstruction ultimately give way to redemption and resurrection. A shockingly gorgeous debut LP for an artist that’s all of 22 years-wise. One to watch grow. Listen to tracks here.
A guest at the recently passed Bushwick Arts Project, Pioulard is also busy penning out an EP for early 2007 as well as detailed, handmade copies of ‘Precis’ available exclusively at Pioulard.com.
Here’s the track list. And although Pioulard/ Meluch may never bother recording the sounds of chickens squeaking in the manner of Matthew Herbert, take note of from where many of the crazy background sounds on the album came:
1. La Guerre de Sept Ans
2. Together & Down (water running, a garbage truck idling, a Veteran’s Day Parade)
3. Ext. Leslie Park (a recording of the lobby of the Toledo Amtrak station)
4. Triggering Back
5. Moth Wings (the piano has since been demolished and burned)
6. Alan & Dawn
7. Corpus Chant (his creaky floor and stones thrown across a frozen river)
8. Palimend (a Radio Shack microphone whipped around inside a plastic coffee can)
9. Coup de Foudre (vocal loops from a dictaphone recording of a Bolllywood movie)
10. Hirondelle (the tearing of X-rays stolen from a doctor’s dumpster)
11. Needle & Thread (a conversation on a deserted Coney Island boardwalk)
12. R Coloring (detuned AM radio noise)
13. Sous la Plage
14. Patter
15. Ash Into the Sky
