I was saddened to hear this past weekend that Lou Reed
passed away. He was one of my favorite artists. He was a part of The Velvet
Underground and later had a solo career. He recorded many songs that were very
influential in my life.
This is the Halloween post. As such Graveface Records has a
special Halloween mix up that you can download here.
Sigur Rós has an iTunes Festival EP up with seven live songs
on iTunes, of course.
Tears For Fears have done a cover of one of my favorite Hot
Chip songs called And I Was A Boy From School. I really like the cover. I am
not sure where to get a copy of the song yet though. You can hear it here.
Record Store Day has released its Black Friday list on their
web site. There are only a couple of items from the list that interest me this
year. Not that I am disappointed though. That means that I am spending less
money on records for Christmas this year. I am looking forward to the Silversun
Pickups 10” release for sure though.
Odd Box has put up for streaming the latest 100 club series.
I have listened to them and although I have ordered the Gum 7” I am kicking
myself for not getting the Flowers single too. You can listen to them here.
Here we go...
This is the first release from The Marshmallow Ghosts. It
was released on October 20th of 2009. It is a 7” picture disc. The
sleeve is covered in a glow in the dark material. I did not find out about the
group until I got the charity series from Graveface Records a couple years ago
now. My interest in the group did not increase until the Indie Go-go fundraiser
kicked off and I was guaranteed the latest release from the group. This record
does not have a paper label in the center because the picture is of a hypnotic
swirl from the center outward. This record was limited to 500 pressings.
The A side track is called Shrieks. I like the opening
because it reminds me of the 7” records that I use to listen to with a book.
The record would tell you when to turn the page and helped you to learn to
read. After the spooky opening ends it goes into an organ lead track with lots
of vibrato. It is musical but spooky at the same time. There aren’t any vocals
really but you can hear someone speaking in the undertow of the song at times.
The tail end of the song just becomes noise between the organ and xylophone and
then a loud wind sort of takes over. It is a very cool spooky song indeed.
The B side track is called Creaks. This song has a spooky
bend on a guitar part that is very creepy. This track also has that person
talking in the undertow of the song every now and again. Just enough so that
you know someone is talking but you can never understand what it is they are
saying. There is also a nice guitar playing along with the creepy. It gives and
uneasy feeling. Half way through all of this stops and there is an old timey
piano playing in a hall with a female vocalist but it is like your standing in
the lobby of the where the hall is, very far away and lots of natural echo.
This then cuts out all together again and a nice rounded guitar starts playing
with and echo pedal on it. You can tell there is an echo pedal on the guitar
only in the breaks of the guitar playing though. It is very pretty.
It is a very interesting single.
This is the second single from The Marshmallow Ghosts. It
was released a year later in October of 2010. With this one the cover still glows
in the dark. The cool thing for me was that the record, a 7”, also glows in the
dark. This record was also limited to 500 pressings. This is my first
glow-in-the-dark record. I was a little disappointed with this because I wanted
my first glow-in-the-dark record to be the Man or Astro-Man? 10” record for
Your Weight On The Moon. It took a while but I reasoned it out to be this will
be my first 7” and the Man or Astro-Man? record will be my first 10” when I can
get my hands on it. This record has vocals on it but at times it gets hard to
listen to because of the way that they are sung, strained and pushed, if that
makes any sense.
The A side of this single is Trick. It starts off with a
crow cawing amongst other birds and noises. The music then kicks in with some
odd noises to start off with. It then adds a distorted organ and super
distorted vocals right after that. There is a drum machine that comes in there
too to add that little extra unease. That is about the whole song, It is not
fantastic but still interesting. It ends just as it started, with crows cawing
amongst other birds and insects.
The B side is then called Treat. This one opens with what
sounds like kids trick or treating with the fun Halloween toys making noises.
An organ fades in playing somewhat spooky song and then a super saw toothed
synth comes in to play with the organ. Then another synth comes in on top of
that. They are all three playing off of each other to make a very cool spooky
and creepy sound. There is some light percussion that comes in to add to the
effect as well. It is a cool spooky song.
This single came with a download card that not only gave you
the two tracks digitaly but also has a remix of each song. The remixes are
labeled as 666GACY666 Mixes, which is kind of funny in a demented way.
This is the first full length album from The Marshmallow
Ghosts. It was released on the 11th of October 2011. The album was
released on vinyl and on dual disc. There were two color variants of the vinyl
version. The limited record club edition version was on Halloween orange with
bone white swirl. limited to 200 pressings. The standard edition was on
Halloween orange with Grimace purple swirl. The dual disc came with the records
but was also purchasable on its own. The DVD side of the dual disc has the
movie called The Marshmallow Ghosts Present Corpse Reviver No 2. The other side
is the album The Marshmallow Ghosts. Corpse Reviver No. 1 does not exist as of
yet. There are talks of a new album for next Halloween and with it the
possibility of another movie.
The movie itself is totally setup like a B-movie with
several short stories in an arch. If you are into B- movies then this will be
of interest to you. It is not really scary but the stories make you think at
any rate. The movie is really just a vehicle for the music on the album but I
guess that is to be expected when the movie comes with an album.
The single from the album is the song Trick. I am not going
to go into that again as the song is already talked about in this post.
I do like the few opening tracks to the album though. The
first song is a short track called Séance at Murder Tract. There are no vocals
on this track but the lead organ has that cool spooky sound that I really like
from this group. The second song is called The Hearse Song. This song has some
big drum sounds but the vocals are in that pushed strained style that the lead
singer likes to do but that I am not that happy with. The song is more
interesting than the annoying vocals though so I can live with it. The Attic is
the third song that starts off with organ and a cool synth that reminds me of
the cheap keyboards of the 80s, some kind of Casio model. The vocals are a bit
more smoothed out making this one of my favorite tracks on the album.
The one song that really gives me the chills is called Shall
I Be “Anna” or “Anna” Be I? It has a ring of the old 70s slasher movies like
Halloween or Friday The 13th. It is my favorite song on the album
There are no lyrics making it even more spooky I think.
All in all it has the perfect amount of spook/scare on the
album I think. I have never been into the Halloween scary music but this may
have opened the door.
This is the latest in The Marshmallow Ghosts series. It was
given out to those who gave money to the Indie Go-go fundraiser. You got the
download of the songs no matter what you gave but you got the record if you
gave twenty-five bucks or more. There were 666 copies pressed in random colors.
The colors were supposed to represent the colors of the monster cereals that
now are put out only for the Halloween season. I got the chocolaty Count
Chocula brown swirl color. I was really hoping for a pink or blue because Franken
Berry and Boo Berry are my favorites. I have only seen a
graphic with four of the colors so I am not sure about the other two colors. I
have seen the pink, brown, grey/blue and an orange color. They are each a swirl
of multi colors with emphasis on the colors mentioned. The record also came
with a download. With this record the download not only came with the two songs
on the 10” but also two additional instrumental versions of the songs.
The A side of the record is called Shadow Land.
This song starts off with a gong and a guy says, “lights out everybody.” Then a
bell starts to toll and the guy says, in time with the bell,
“It’s…later…than…you…think…” The song then starts up. There is a cool sign wave
synth that carries the song all the way through. There are vocals with the song
but they are the strained pushed sound that I am not really a fan of. The drums
are mostly on the cymbals and high-hat. The bass kicks in later and sounds so
cool, the right amount of distortion and very controlled. The song is just over
nine minutes long but it is still interesting in the long run. There are parts
that I like a lot though and I can live through the long song if I wan to hear
those cool bits. The song does have a dramatic change at the end. It is like a
new song has started. It reminds me of something that Stereolab would do.
The B side is called Light From The Other Side. This one
starts off with the same gong and bell tolls and the guy saying,
“It’s…later…than…you…think…” The music starts with a drum machine and a synth
part that comes off a bit cheesey but I like it all the same. The vocals aren’t
as bad to listen to with this one. It is a slower song that seems to pick up
where the end of the A side ended. The bass comes in a third of the way into
the song again and has that awesome distortion on it again. It nearly
overpowers the song this time when it is being played though. There are some
instruments that come in half way through the song that sound so cool. I am not
sure that I would use them in my music but the sound works so well in this
song. This is another long song where the last three minutes become a different
song all together. There are some organ stabs that sound very cool and the
drums are just the bass drum. There is also a cool sawtooth wave that is used
over the top of all of this. All of this just fades out into the either except
for the back ground noise that sort of stand up after everything fades away.
If you can get it I would recommend it to any Halloween
music fan. Here is a link to the sampler for the 10" record.
This was a special release with the last charity series from Graveface Records. I talked about it in Vol. 3 Episode 44, "This third record in this set is from The Marshmallow Ghosts
And Dreamend or Dreamend And The Marshmallow Ghosts depending on which version
of the track you are listening to. The track that is on this record is called
The Sneak. It is two different versions of the song though and this is the
reason for the reversed naming of the bands. This record benefits the charity
The Rape Crisis Center of The Coastal Empire. They are a rape crisis center
started in 1975 in Georgia.
The A side of this record is done by The Marshmallow Ghosts
And Dreamend. This version of The Sneak is simple synthesized sounds. The
strange part is the vocals. They seem somewhat monotone and processed through a
distortion box. I think the song would be so much better if the vocalist would
have tried to sing the song better or just left off the vocals.
The B side of this record is done by Dreamend And The
Marshmallow Ghosts. This version of the song uses the same synthesized tones
but also adds a screeching distorted guitar sound over the top. It adds a deep
bass sound under the guitar part and progressively gets more intense because of
this. It all then cuts out with the exception of a nice synth wave sound. There
are no vocals on this version and I think that is the best honestly. It is the
best of both worlds. Lots of noise in the beginning and fades to beautiful
synth sounds at the end. This is the better of the two versions for sure."
The only link to a sound byte was recorded at 33 RPMs, not quite right sounding (it is supposed to be at 45) but if your interested here it is.
That is it for The Marshmallow Ghosts Halloween post, for now... (HAHAHahahahha...)
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