Like a Nordic Dr.Strange conducting a warped seance; Stockholm’s, curiously, esoteric multi-instrumentalist, Gustav Hadin, converses with unworldly apparitions on his -aptly spectral entitled – ‘Ghost Songs EP’.
Recorded – in true D.I.Y style – onto a cheap cassette deck; Hadin’s (aka Rain Kings) psych-drone, krautrock style musical passages are distorted to fuck, and ladened with layers of ethereal whispering electric smog that recondite any obvious traces of an actual song. The title track feeds Led Zepplin, Spaceman 3 and The Jesus and the Mary Jane through an industrious cyclone, powered by a Mogadon duped Robert Johnson, whilst an unrelenting, churning rhythm and Skull Island sea-shanty creeping keyboard compete with sanctified melodic waves of such unjust beauty (phew!).
Wolves is an equally heavy trip, but it also has a soulful touch of John Weinzierl (Amon Duul II) diaphanous guitar, which evocatively drifts and bends over a white-noise oozing soundscape; enhanced by a momentus step-change melody.
The last song of the, so far, heavy-mental triumvirate, is a rather more sedate acoustic led affair. ‘The spell-casting Blood, Sugar, Magic channels the laconic, blissful meloncholy of a sober Beta Band, with howls of solar wind atmospherics and sibilant cosmic interference, to produce a mournfully saddened epilogue.
You’ll either find it a painful experience to sit through, or you’ll praise it’s audacity to the high heavens: after all one man’s dirge is another man’s dream – or something like that. I’m giving this EP an overwhelming ‘seventh seal’ of approval; after all we should encourage such high spirits (seriously no pun intended), as Hadin leads us astray into the prog-shoegaze sounding afterlife.
18/07/2011
[Rating:4.5]
