I'm happy today to premiere the video for a new track from Augusta, Georgia's forceghost. Eric Kinlaw (vocals, guitar, bass, sound design) and Marcus Barfield (production, sound design) are forceghost and they make music that's bright and bracing. However, beneath the electro-indie of this fine new one lurks some sadness.
I'll let Eric Kinlaw explain.
"This was one of the first songs we played live and wrote together. Marcus had this psychedelic sequenced modular jam with the bass-line and chord structure almost complete. We jammed on it extensively and arranged it down to these parts.The vocal melodies came to me almost instantaneously with phrasing that just fit. The lyrics were directly inspired by the vibe of the music; a classic video game soundtrack. I tell a story about being bad at video games which parallels the secondary story lamenting a broken relationship. I was never good at video games when I was younger. So that imagery felt personal and I could put myself back into an arcade like I was a kid all over again. While the sonic musicality is super positive and uplifting, the lyrics are candid and honest about a lost love. A love note written on a bathroom mirror that eventually fades from the shower steam slowly erasing it. A longing that will never be satisfied but maybe playing a game to take your mind off of it will help. At least for a little while.
As we further shaped the musical content, I wanted to incorporate a simple high register guitar chord outline that wrapped around the sequence heard in the beginning. Chime-like guitars were added later that pulsated with the rhythm. The main synth-line soars and takes over in between verses. As we were recording it, some of the unused synth melodies had a rich warmth to them. I stretched them out to span over some empty vocal sections and in that created the woozy enveloping synth wave. I used a trance delay plugin that twisted some guitar layers into rising and falling bands. We also used this for other sound design layers throughout that mimic video game sounds. One of the last things added was Marcus's energetic guitar melody that is the call-and-response to the vocals."
This track is a taster for the band's new album, unknowing the known, due out on March 1. For now, dig this New Wave-y bit of DIY goodness. There's a hint of Elephant 6 stuff here to these ears, but see what you think.
More details on forceghost via the link below.
[Photo: forceghost]