Psychepoppet - Ghosts

Psychepoppet's history is a bit odd, to say the least; at first starting out as a graffiti project based around the Washington DC area in 2002, this entity eventually started to make experimental ambient music. Expect field recordings, synthesizer sequences, and all other sorts of nonsense. Maintaining a mysterious presence, with hardly a thing to find on this one online, and refusing to give away many details behind the project, Psychepoppet sort of remains a ghostly figure.

And I suppose that fits right and well with the latest single from this one, simply titled Ghosts. Six tracks, three original, three remixes make an appearance on this release, and there's a very limited release of 5 CDs that are available for purchase, and only three remain.

Last Breadth is the first track on this release; minimalist sound and reversing noises with a high note to make you feel as if you're caught in the midst of a horror film. The distorted and low pitched, kind of growling vocals come into play over a very slight drone note, and a little electronic note ends off this introductory track.

The title track Ghosts comes second in line, and doesn't abandon those deep pitched lyrics, though I'm none too sure if they're just samples that were toyed with or not. A bit of an IDM feel comes into play which adds nicely on top of the ambient song structure. I really enjoyed this one.

Pococo had a nice little steady rhythm to it, and included sounds of either a rain forest or jungle. And, though I liked the sounds in this song, the overall beat remained fairly stagnant, and didn't move much; in that sense, it fell on its face. Musically, the song was good, but just needed to change more.

And then three remixes of the song came out to play. dE/mutE added more of a tribal feel to the song, played with an alarm like sound, and squeaky, high pitched samples from the mouth of a child (or at least what I would assume to be a child) made this one unique. Not as grand as the original, but definitely decent.

Warszawa added a nice little touch of ambience to the grand scheme, and opted in for less quotes and phrases, and went for more instrumentation. A nice little drum effect, far off machine noises led to a pretty decent remix. The final mix came from r3m0rt, and while the first half remained similar, but less heavy than the previous mix, the scratchy noise and drum work found in the second half made it stand apart.

But, all is well with the release. It's a good single that intrigued me on occasion. The title track is really the main attraction, while everything surrounding it was good effort, but couldn't top or come anywhere close to the single. I do look forward to a full length from this artist, however. Aug 27 2014