Ghost Is Not Real
Finland's Husky Rescue captures the winter spirit
Let’s get this out of the way: Husky Rescue’s Ghost Is Not Real is a darkly atmospheric album steeped in lush orchestrations within a grand cinematic scope. If its opening title sequence were the color of television, it’d be a dead channeled post-apocalyptic landscape lurking with minimalist psychedelic imagery, tangling child-like nostalgia with world-weary realism.
Right, so now that we’ve gotten over the token music reviewer jingoisms, can we delve into what really makes an album ‘cinematic’? It seems like such a complicated term to toss about as criteria for an indie electronic/pop album. Does it allude to an album’s ability to offer an alternative reality, a form of escapism? Or is it the complete opposite – warranting how true to life an album can be, and how closely it reflects our own reality?
I’ve been wrangling with this dilemma, especially on the latter example. You see, I’m having a crisis with my bias, and wondering if my appreciation of this album is affected by seasonal affective disorder. You know – the ‘winter blues’.
After all, how appropriate is it that a record label releases an album by a Finnish band at the height of winter with songs that directly connect to snowstorms and high wind chill factors? Marketing-wise, it’s apt timing.
Of course, the band’s biography lends authenticity to this. Husky Rescue began as a pet project for Marko Nyberg, a composer who originally hails from a small town north of Helsinki. In 2004, Nyberg released the critically acclaimed debut Country Falls, an optimistic collection of songs that wore its cosmic Americana slash downbeat roots on its sleeve.
When Nyberg took the album on tour, a five-piece band formed that has remained in place for this sophomore effort: lead singer Reeta-Leena Korhola, guitarist Miika Colliander, keyboardist Ville Riippa and drummer Anssi Sopanen. In photos, they recall Blondie circa Parallel Lines – the attractive blonde bombshell with non-descript males in matching suits backing her.
Indeed, it’s the delicate lilt of Korhola’s voice that is an only constant, breathing cold air into the opener “My Home Ghost”, where the crystal chimes of a glockenspiel underscore the wary mantra “ghost is not real” before rolling into flurries of dichotomous noise.
For a moment, the mood seems complacently set in the nostalgic country twang of “Diamond in the Sky”, but soon the lap steel guitar chords are elongated by synths into a Japanese shamisen-like echo. This is abruptly kicked by “Nightless Night”, a country ode pitched by a fuzzed out electric guitar for the prolonged twilight during the midsummer in northern Finland.
The art rock tendencies of “Blueberry Hill I-III” broach Syd Barrett psych territory. It’s a tad gratuitous, but lends a climatic entrance for the victorious Noh-like synths of “Hurricane (Don’t Come Knocking)”, where a desperate Korhola attempts and fails to trash a love that still holds. In the end, we escape to the organ paces of the city – “Shadow Run” – where young boys and girls hunt in packs after one another, their movements synced by electro morse code.
However, it’s a bit disappointing that after such an ambitious trek the album neatly closes with “Caravan”, an accessible and catchy track that recalls the optimism of Country Falls but seems like far too safe of a place for Ghost Is Not Real to land on. It’s as if the forays into different genres – folk, rock, synths, electro, etc. – have yet to fuse into a cohesive sound that’s uniquely Husky Rescue.
Nonetheless, Ghost Is Not Real is a comforting guide into the cold isolation of winter, speaking of how it possibly bleeds the dichotomy between country and city, playing with their inherent meanings. When everything is submerged in snow, there’s something democratic about the daily struggle in sloshing boots through sidewalk slush, tempered by the simplistic beauty of intricate lattice frost patterns on windows.
Rating: 4/5
Links: Husky Rescue: http://www.husky-rescue.com, Cat Skills Records: http://www.catskillsrecords.com
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