Sunday 31 August 2008

GHOST MOON (imaginary musick)

CARETAKER (THE)

SELECTED MEMORIES FROM THE HAUNTED BALLROOM

Original Issue: 1999 V/Vm Test Records (OFFAL02) (Buy it here!)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

The atmosphere created here is superb, taking old 78s and drowning them in mental distortion, going some way to what was going on inside Jack Nicholson's head in the film "The Shining" (inspiration for the project and one of Margot's favorite) - www.discogs.com

Here you can read an interesting article about Hauntology.

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1 The Haunted Ballroom (3:44)
2 By The Seaside (4:00)
3 One Thousand Memories (1:25)
4 Haunting Me (3:48)
5 A Summer Romance (3:05)
6 Den Of Iniquity (2:45)
7 Dream Waltz (3:29)
8 A Handful Of Stars (3:34)
9 Request Dance (5:09)
10 In The Dark (3:02)
11 Reckless Night (3:02)
12 Thronged With Ghosts (3:48)
13 From Out Of Nowhere (3:45)
14 Friends Past Reunited (2:00)
15 You And The Night (3:12)
16 Moonlight Seranade (2:34)
17 Disillusioned (2:41)
18 The Revolving Bandstand (0:47)
19 Garden Of Weeds (3:06)
20 "Excuse Me" For Ladies (0:59)
21 In Days Of Old (2:14)
22 September 1939 (1:57)
23 Thanks (3:25)
24 The Haunted Ballroom (3:20)
25 Untitled (3:29)

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from The Caretaker homepage:

Dusty and forgotten memories, echoes and vibrations from the past.
Using as source, recordings from the 1920's and 1930's era of Ballroom music.
Often painful and desolate memories, recalled and replayed from beyond the grave of our senses.
In amongst this darkness lies the solace of a semi-recognizable melody or phrase, a beacon of light in this often dark and distant ocean of haunted recalled audio.


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from Boomkat:

The Caretaker has always been the more thoughful alter-ego of V/VM - the Stockport based butchers have been grinding up sound for quite some time now, and this full length was originally released way back in 1999.

A nice diversion from the demonic plugin-fuelled insanity of their more well known work, Caretaker instead goes for industrial ambience. Think Skinny Puppy’s more cinematic moments and you’ll be somewhere in the right area – what I love most about this album though is the kind of reverberating fairground mood.

Seaside organs hiss and hum in the background and give the record a persistent menace, a thick nostalgic groan which reminds me of Jeunet and Caro’s shiver inducing ‘Cite Des Enfants Perdus’ or maybe even more fittingly David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’.

Vinyl crackle rings out across the album as if it’s being played as an instrument and before long you’ll be certain you don’t live in the real world anymore. Utterly unique and really quite scary, in the best possible sense.


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

hauntology. that's a nice tag. :)

thanks for the musick.

Anonymous said...

Cool and scary both at once... perfect for a night in alone, in the dark.

Love it. :-)

Richard

soso said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Hi

Excellent post. Who's never been haunted by memories? The concept behind this cd tells me I'm not alone.
Thank you.
Love

Anonymous said...

such a consistantly interesting selection of posts, Margot - i think that's the key - the fact that they are obviously *selected* with care. thank-you for both the caretaker and the battiato bundle and DON'T CHANGE A THING!

sean said...

thank you!

Unknown said...

The Caretaker has a live recording available for free DL at the V/Vm site:

http://www.brainwashed.com/vvm/micro/caretaker/vukzid09.html

Anonymous said...

absolutely genius...reminds me of the first time that i sat down with homotopy with marie...one of the most chilling albums i've had the joy of listening to recently. margot, A+++. Thanks so much!

W. said...

I quite like it though I don't find it scary. I'll be checking out the live recording mentioned by boneskull.

Quality blog!

Margot F. said...

Sorry Ljubinko; I had to remove your comment because it contains info to download a brand new album. As you probably know, this is not in line with this blog's philosophy.

Thank you anyway and hope you understand...

Margot

¡Mateo es así! said...

Thank you. I love smeary reverb! Well curated.

Anonymous said...

Though I rarely now speak, I have
been actively watching the blogs
and taking samples of some great
work which inspires quite a spending
spree I should get rid of but can't.

Thank you for it, Margot.