The Ghost Bees - Tasseomancy
The term ‘ghost’ in the name of this band is something of a clue. This is a lovely little mini-album of ghostly, spectral folk tales, which twirls and wails just a little above where many of you may wish to go, but nevertheless I find myself rather enjoying it.
This is one of those instances where my disorganisation fails us all, because I have no idea who emailed their stuff through, and can’t tell you anything about the band, apart from the fact that they come from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I once spent some time in jail. To find out how much I know, click on their MySpace page to read, erm, very little actually. If you want real information, complete with depth, research and knowledge then Obscure Sound is the place for you.
The music gets too close to the sort of high-pitched female arch-folkstress at times, but nevertheless I find myself liking this album. Imagine a fleeting glimpse of two pale girls in white dresses as the grey Atlantic light seeps weakly from a pale sky. Wind is blowing, curtains dance, and the paint is peeling from the front door. It’s a house on a low hill facing the salt and the anger of the sea, yet at distance enough not to be threatened. That house might be haunted by this album, leaping and flickering around it, the tin coffee pot, the worn floorboards, the damp walls. It isn’t a malicious haunting really, just a vaguely threatening one; one that makes you nervous that should you upset it, then there is a dark and vengeful side to this album that as long as you don’t offend the girls, they need never turn loose on you.
I know that comes across as trying a bit too hard to be a proper writer, but that really is where Tasseomancy takes you. I didn’t know they were from Nova Scotia when I first heard the album, but the bleak, isolated beauty of Canada’s Maritimes really does fit with the music. It was an ‘oh yes, of course’ moment. One that you will probably experience if you are kind enough to treat yourself to this album.
The album comes out on 8th April, so the only purchase link I can find is on American Amazon here.
2 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
I hear what you mean about the vocals. There’s a pretty obvious Joanna Newsom “thing” happening here. Still and all, the mandolin is really lovely, and who can resist the Classical references? Castor & Pollux? Tiresius? But what’s all this about rotten wombs and afterbirth? This tune has a similar feel to the Bob Frank and John Murry songs you posted last year. A gentle air of menace.
Apparently they are twins, one born five minutes after the other, and this is a song written about their birth from the perspective of the second twin. Odd choice of material, I’d say, but it’s a really nice song.