New Love - Former Ghosts

New Love

Former Ghosts
Upset the Rhythm Records.

SCQ Rating: 83%

Few sensations can be as scary and self-effacing as falling in love. Every action and reaction committed by your love interest feels subliminal to something deeper, creating anxieties whether you choose to perceive such gestures as romantic or casual. So many doubts: are you both on the same page, does he/she feel the same, and - most terrifying of all - are you in this all alone? In the case of Freddy Ruppert last year, that fear had been realized and chronicled for Fleurs, a devastatingly detailed post-break-up record that enriched Ruppert’s loss in a reverb that simultaneously sought to bury him.

So while this new LP bears a title suggesting a reinvigorated chance at happiness, its thirteen songs thrive and thrash like the stream-of-conscious sentiments of an unsure lover. Pounding mid-tempo assertions set up Ruppert’s quiet confidence in ‘The Days Will Get Long Again’ but dissipate into wintry despair for ‘Until You Are Alone Again’ with a suddenness that borders on bipolar. His brittle emotions make for compelling listening, as the inspired rush that romances ‘New Orleans’ almost feels disillusioned in hindsight once we’ve heard ‘Bare Bones’, a plodding epitaph that finds Ruppert breaking down by the thirty-second mark. Quelling the emotional rollercoaster is Nika Roza Danilova of Zola Jesus, whose seismic vocal presence punches out two club-worthy highlights, but ‘Bare Bones’, while at first unlistenable, leaves the longer impact with a melody so peculiar it should be restricted to one’s subconscious (nevermind the unforgettable vocal performance).

None of this is meant to imply that New Love isn’t lighter, at least sonically. By dropping much of Fleurs’ moody reverb, Former Ghosts reign all of this rediscovered aural real-estate by embracing pop structures. Both ‘Winter’s Year’, which introduces Yasmine Kittles into the collective’s fold, and ‘Right Here’ breeze effortlessly on shimmering synths and a post-punk beat, providing the requisite balance to keep the record’s darker moments at bay. The cleaner production exposes both a glitchier aspect to Former Ghosts’ sound as well as a textural one, its odd rhythms permeating the title track like noises in a foreign bedroom at night. Somewhere behind the electronic curtain, Jamie Stewart can be felt tinkering around.

New Love seems burdened not by the countless anxieties that play into a relationship’s awkward beginnings, but by Ruppert’s self-acknowledged lusting, which treats each romantic possibility as a new obsession to fall headlong into. “When you kiss me / it seals my fate,” Ruppert sings at one point, confirming how vicious New Love’s cycle really is. Slick songwriting overcomes even this fated-to-misery narrative, resulting in one of 2010’s most unnerving records.

Fleurs - Former Ghosts

Fleurs

Former Ghosts
Upset the Rhythm Records.

SCQ Rating: 89%

Back home for Thanksgiving, 12:30am: I grab my overcoat off the rack and slip into a drizzle ten hours strong. Caught on the wind and clinging like orbs to my sleeves, the downpour is almost sleet, pulverizing mist swirling the suburban backstreets. My concrete path shimmered in bruised crabapples and falling leaves, I parade all the dead confetti that’s at once celebrated and depressing; a complicated ecstasy and withdrawal that pervades Fleurs, the record buzzing between my headphones. Former Ghosts is a fitting title for a number of reasons, the least of which being the former bands this synth-pop ensemble originates from (although Freddy Ruppert of This Song Is a Mess But So Am I, Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu and Nika Roza of Zola Jesus joining forces is hardly an afterthought). Inspired by the shadows of lost comforts but performed as a morbid party for their passing, Former Ghosts is a band hell-bent on facing past lives and, in effect, exorcizing themselves.

“Two paths crossing at just the right time,” intones Ruppert at the start of ‘Us and Now’, breaking us into the emotional gravitas of Fleurs with a cavernously layered opener of sharp keys and subtle yet glitch-y programming. Like a State-of-the-Union conversation between lovers, ‘Us and Now’ is a crash-course in Former Ghosts’ subject matter – dealing with love as a cause for a plethora of passionate effects – yet these lyrics seem born out of necessity instead of self-absorption, and Ruppert’s hounding insistence gives a do-or-die authenticity to familiar feelings. For the uninitiated, a first impression of Ruppert’s vocals might recall the baritone of Ian Curtis, which is a fair assessment although Ruppert’s clears a few hurdles Curtis seemed headstrong against. Even when going without the compressed effect that thins his voice into tin-strands around phrases on ‘Mother’ or the slight warps that quivers his timbre on ‘Unfolding’, Ruppert bleeds emotion through his natural voice, crooning instability on the squealing ‘Hold On’ and understatement on the resonating mood-piece ‘Choices’. That his passion happens to be matched by his bandmates is a serious bonus; Nika Roza unleashes the most arresting vocals on Fleurs with ‘In Earth’s Palm’ and ‘The Bull and the Ram’ while Stewart wisely counters a discreet but nonetheless enchanting vocal performance on ‘I Wave’. The thrill of these individual efforts are only defeated by hearing all three of these musicians in time together, as on ‘Hold On’ when Roza’s wail announces itself only after a climactic crest of chants and synths subside. Opposing Joy Division’s obsession with alienation, Former Ghosts are constantly reaching through dense arrangements for renewed understanding.

Above all, Fleurs’ distinction goes to the instrumentation which, despite being drenched in reverb and no-wave effects, balances a surprising duality. Complimenting the lyrical battle between starry-eyed destiny and downtrodden reality, Former Ghosts trade soft keys for serrated ones, crisp electronic taps for blood-rushing live percussion, and together exude a violent beauty too self-destructive to leave alone. Like manic bouts of depression, ‘Flowers’ finds Ruppert torturing himself over brisk beats and urgent keys before slipping into a post-meltdown relief where everything slows with his heartbeat. And appropriately, Fleurs does the same for its listeners, providing an outlet for innermost reflection which, when opened up to, becomes an insulating soundscape of mourning and rejoicing. “Two paths crossing at just the right time,”? You said it.

Its intensity giving way to comfort, Fleurs is one of those rare albums that seem capable of shielding you from emotional harm, even when its songs are slowly burning away your defenses. Such revelations became clear to me as I walked that fall midnight, wandering high school streets. As ‘This Is My Last Goodbye’ sang its sparse epitaph of drum loops and buzzing synth between my ears, I caught thinning trees, like shadows waving, before the fluorescent glow of a local mall. Even when closed, its parking lot lights pollute night’s darkness as though suburbia reserved their own sky phenomena. And representing the equator and prime meridian crossing of both this small town and my teenage years, this mall is among many things I’ve exorcized in my slow ascent toward adulthood. The brilliance of Fleurs is its use of nostalgia as a forward-thinking weapon… and that’s ammunition Former Ghosts and listeners can share together.