Saturday, January 22, 2011

Want a bit of indie soul with your beats? Caught A Ghost is here to help.


Caught A Ghost is a new side project of Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Jesse Nolan, frontman of Red Arrow Messenger (formerly The Cheat), which may or may not still exist. He's also just an all-around awesome guy. But this is no typical singer-songwriter venture. This is some forward-thinking shit, and it's making me really excited.

These guys make dazzling genre experiments that confuse and delight at the same time. Which comes as no surprise to me, seeing as the last time I ran into Jesse Nolan (and Ghost backup vocalist Marushka Mujic) was at L.A. genrefuck/beat scene club Low End Theory (with Take and FlyLo, which we reviewed HERE), and it seems like he's taking his music in a logical direction: there's some blue-eyed, old school soul, there's the solid indie rock chops I remember from his earlier work, but now he's doing some impressive production as well, incorporating elements of dubstep, electro, and beat music into his songs. And it's awesome.

They've got a little 3-song release out (the Cag Mixtape), and each of its tracks are completely original and innovative in their own little way.



"Sleeping At Night" reminds me a bit of Kele's solo stuff/Bloc Party's electronica adventures on Intimacy (cf. the horns on "Mercury").

"Sugar In My Coffee" is what would happen if Free The Robots and Take decided to make some gritty chain-gang-work-song blues. Best song on the tape, the sound they got here is just incredible. Really makes me respect Nolan's production chops.

"Time Go" is like downtempo 90's alt-rock meets ambient electronica textures. Really neat song, another favorite of mine.

The point is, I am mega-pumped for what the future holds for this project. You should really get it on iTunes, it's only $3. And it's not everyday a 3-song EP comes with this diverse and interesting a sound.

Lobster Out.

BONUS VIDEO:


Fun Fact: this video was handmade with little more than an iphone. Impressive!

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