Claim Your Ghost: 5 Songs on Ghosts
This week's songs are from Helado Negro, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Gregory Alan Isakov, and Elephant Micah
The Halloween decorations were out on houses even two weeks ago. I was in Target before Memorial Day weekend and there were already costumes for sale. It’s never too early to kick off Halloween season.
We’ve got an embarrassment of riches when it comes to themes, so we’ll spend the month of October here.
Even with Nine Inch Nails in the mix, this is a pretty chill run of ghost-themed songs. Plenty of cardigan-wearers to consider this some solid Fall music as well.
Here are 5 songs on ghosts.
“It’s an ode to New York in the wintertime—a song about snuggling up with somebody and addressing the heaviness and the darkness on a psychological and emotional level. You’re wrapped up in a coat, wrapped up in your mind, wrapped up by the heat in your apartment, wrapped up by a building. There’s so many layers in New York, and when winter comes, everything is that much more compressed. That song is finding the place where you can just let go in your mind and know that shit’ll get better.” - Roberto Carlos Lange
Helado Negro - “Fantasma Vaga”
I’d be hard-pressed to find a more chilled out musician than Helado Negro. A son of Ecuadorian immigrants Roberto Carlos Lange sings primarily in Spanish. Unlike nearly all other music I can think of, Helado Negro’s music sounds like it is designed to be listened to at a lower volume—very early in the morning, or very late at night. It coaxes you into a lower and slower wavelength. From his 2019 breakout This is How You Smile, “Fantasma Vaga” casts a spell with mostly low tones and a few turns of the nob on a modular synth courtesy of Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso) and spectral backing vocals from Columbian singer Ela Minus. The lyrics, like the ghosts being conjured up, are vague—slight changes in people, places, and voices. Ultimately, the ghosts are who we are in the past. But does the subject of a song so atmospheric and evocative matter? Of course not.
“[Ian Curtis] never danced in rehearsals. He just started doing it when we were playing. We used to do a long build-up in ‘Dead Souls’ because he felt it was a great way of sizing up the audience and building up tension. He was onstage from the start, doing the dance, freaking people out.” - Peter Hook
Nine Inch Nails - “Dead Souls”
I’ve mentioned this song before, in regards to movie soundtracks being a friendly gateway into artists, particularly those that weren’t on the radio. From The Crow soundtrack, this is a pretty faithful cover of Joy Division’s original, which was released on Still, the band’s compilation of previously unreleased material following the death of Ian Curtis. Apparently Joy Division used the atmospheric bass-and-drums for an extended introduction at the top of their live sets, and Curtis would dance, as a way to size up—or wake up—their audiences. Nine Inch Nails retains the extended intro to the song, with Trent Reznor’s voice not entering until 1:19. In addition to the slight polish of production, the only real change to the song is Reznor, singing less like a person who’s lost the battle with the voices in their heads, and more like a person who refuses to engage with them, persistent as they are. Curtis borrowed the title from Nikolai Gogol’s novel, where the “Dead Souls” were serfs, or depending on the reading, the materialistic upper-middle-class.
“Almost every tune is like a collage, you know. Things we prerecorded, each of us, and then were flying at each other. It’s like editing a film or something.” - Thom Yorke
Radiohead - “Give Up the Ghost”
Radiohead aren’t really in my regular listening rotation, but every two years or so I’ll make a deep dive and swim in those waters for a good long while. Their music can be chaotic and bursting with a wild patchwork of ideas all happening at once, or melded together. Occasionally they’ll find one core idea and (for the most part) let it be. “Give Up the Ghost” sounds like one of those, but for King of Limbs, the band had recorded a series of jams and instruments, which they then chopped into loops, manipulated, and patched together into songs—a technique Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich used on Yorke’s solo debut (The Eraser). “Give Up the Ghost” sounds like a spectral being emerging from a foggy lake in the dark. Maybe it’s the reverb and multi-track vocals? Maybe it’s Thom Yorke singing like a doped up Mr. Burns out wandering through the forest. But what really stands out to me is how tactile and close that acoustic guitar sounds, both as a percussion and string instrument.
“A lot of my songs become a little bit ineffable for me to describe, because I start with an emotive quality, and that’s the most important thing: When I come back to a piece of music, I’m like, ‘does it take me some place?’” - Gregory Alan Isakov
Gregory Alan Isakov - “San Luis”
Sticking with that tactile guitar sounds, you can hear the wood body and some squeaky strings in the first moments of the sweeping “San Luis.” The song is nicely layered, with ghostly backing vocals, a banjo, shuffling drums, and a few distant splash cymbals. It sounds like a lot, but they each float in at the moment they’re called for, looking for no attention beyond expanding the scope of the song. What’s striking about this tune is how deep it sounds, like it was recorded in a dark cave. Contributing to the mystical quality, Isakov claims to have started the song in Colorado’s San Luis Valley and coincidentally finished it in a hotel in San Luis Obispo. There’s a longing, but also a familiar warmth, even as he sings of two people disconnected and invisible to one another in the song’s refrain.
Weightlessness, no gravity
Were we somewhere in-between?
I’m a ghost to you, you’re a ghost to me
“I guess 10 years ago it seemed like a good name, as a tribute to some sort of spirit of defying ‘reality,’ or using imagination to construct realities. This is helpful to be reminded of if you are a small-town youth with no sense that becoming a legitimate artist of any sort is possible.” - Joseph O’Connell
Elephant Micah - “By the Canal”
Joseph O’Connell, a contemporary of Will Oldham and Jason Molina, self-records in Southern Indiana as Elephant Micah. Oldham appears on “By the Canal” with some background “la la las.” While a lot of acoustic-based musicians claim the “folk” genre (particularly the “stomp-clap-hey” set), few live it as a practice. O’Connell obtained a grant from the state of Indiana in folk and traditional music, for his work with roots music. For a home-recorder, O’Connell gets a warm and clear sound, similar to Jose Gonzalez, particularly the nylon string guitar. Like Isakov and Helado Negro, the lyrics are plainspoken and meaning is elusive. The ghost is something unknown; he’s just asking questions he knows have no real answers.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy listening.
Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs:
See also: Paris 1919 by John Cale