My Great Ghost is a New York based dup consisting of Drew Smith and Trevor Gureckis. Smith sings and Gureckis makes the music electronically, i am guessing via a laptop, even though the information on their website is a little vague.
Smith is kind of the star here -- his voice is the centerpiece of the songs. He really works his voice, varying the pitch in odd ways with some sounds choked and swallowed. The voice is often looped and layered, providing a rich sound. To be honest, the overall effect of the vocal manipulation here reminds me a lot of Sascha Ring of Apparat. The music is vaguely Apparat-esque as well, meaning that it is mildly electronic sounding, for the most part.
All of this is to say that this is crisp electro music that focuses on a male voice. I suspect that some people will be uninterested in this based on that description. However, i think there is much to enjoy here. You can get most of the EP for free (links included below), so let's examine the songs before you spend your bandwidth on them.
The EP starts off with an echoing keyboard riff and some deep throbbing bass, while a drum beat skitters. Smith's voice comes in and he wails away as Photograph grooves along for about three minutes, layers of electro sounds popping in and out in the background. They have this available for free download on their Bandcamp page.
Plain Sight kicks off with a plinking guitar and a loping drum beat, Smith's voice in layers. And then at about the two minute mark, a flute sound comes in and the beat becomes a lovely clattering groove. Smith's voice is deeply layered here. I really like this tune, and think it is the best one on the EP. You can download it free here.
The third track is a cover of Helicopter off of Deerhunter's 2010 LP Halcyon Digest. I never really got into that LP for whatever reason, so i find it odd to see it covered. Anyway, this is noisy and echoed, the percussion clattering as the synths soar and swirl and Smith sings through echo. It's nice enough. You might recall that Field Mouse also covered this tune. My Great Ghost's rendition is a lot more abstract, less Deerhunter-esque than Field Mouse's version, and thus is a more interesting interpretation. You can download this here.
The fourth song on the EP download that the band sent me is called Means to an End, and is not featured on their BandCamp page. This song is a little different for them, the rhythm a mess of syncopated clipped beats and short synth bursts that is closer to dubstep than anything else on the EP. It really reminds me a lot of the latest Moderat record. Not that this is a bad thing.
There is one more non-downloadable track, Shade Above. Again, this is different. It kicks off with a real drum riff, not something laptop-manipulated. There are tremoloed keys, and the voice seems less manipulated. Is this My Great Ghost preparing a band to play live? It sounds more organically recorded than anything else here, which makes it an odd end to this release.
Overall, i think this is a promising debut. You should go listen for yourself though, especially to Plain Sight.
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