Hungry Ghosts / Alone, Alone

Smells Like Records

At a pub in Melbourne, Australia, Steve Shelley and Luc Suer caught a trio of Rowland S. Howard protégés—TIM HOWDEN, JOHN BROOKS and JASON G. BONEHAM, collectively known as HUNGRY GHOSTS—blowing the doors off the place with a wild storm of flickering Fender sparkle, Jaguar growl, bass drum boom, and minimal martial snare. That show and their self-released EP were impressive enough to prompt an invitation to come up from down under and make a new record. In June '99 the trio set up shop at Tribecca Recording, with Steve producing and Luc engineering, and cut fifteen tracks of sweet, outback soul and dusty red ballads that drip, curl, and spark. The 'Ghosts have expertly absorbed the rough, wailing waltzes and swooping, tidal minor movements of their countrymen The Dirty Three (not to mention the barroom baroque of the Boys Next Door brood: Birthday Party, Bad Seeds, These Immortal Souls), but Alone, Alone yields grander rewards—they've significantly expanded the palette by using equal measures of conventional chops and avant technical antics; liberally rotating instruments including electric and acoustic guitars, a wide range of tuned percussion, trap kit, fiddle, accordion, organ; and deftly deploying elements of Spanish, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian and American idioms. The result is a unique brand of combustive folk music, where primitive punk roots patrol a more mature Morricone/Badalamenti beat.  Yet this is no cliché "soundtrack without a film." Alone Alone's tracks stand alone. Divided into three programs—Before Then, Alone Alone, and No Wake—the album's standout cuts include "No Prior Conviction," a bold Morriconian lament that would surely make Clint cry; the title track's tremolo-tumbling ur-chords and silky Loren Mazzacane-isms dissolving into SY-style rumblings; "Float," a delicate chiming lullaby sliced by fiddle cascading over metallic dronage; and "Come," with its gamelan goofin' reminscent of Oval, underlaying more serpentine leads and subtle slide.  

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