Get Your Walk On #1:Ghost Stories' Quixoticism

I didn’t write about Ghost Stories’ Quixoticism after it was released in January 2007, but the disc remained in the stack. And spring seems a perfect opportunity to go back to the disc, because “Secret Life of the Union Part II” incorporates bird songs and chirps, including that of the Northern Flicker, into its melodic, dreamy plaintive picnic blanket warmth. With spring fully in bloom around me in St. Louis (obscured only by day-long sessions in a windowless hotel conference room), Ghost Stories provides the sun-kissed, idyllic, anthemic answer to the need for a soundtrack for joyous walks in the reinvigorated outdoors.

The spring-like qualities recall XTC’s Skylarking, which is only enhanced when Ron Lewis (and associates) hit their pop stride, a cadence like Spearmint or Free French. Yet, many tracks are like mini-montage, sound collages with the segues happening in the middle of the songs. So the melodies and hooks are enlivened by beats that are like ghosts—you must wait for them to appear.

In this way, Quixoticism is like the Beatles’ white album where the pop song emerges with more sensation because of the surrounding experimentalism. Ghost Stories, then, produces the interconnectedness of a Roger Waters album which will fuel a 39-minute walk through your nearest, beautiful park.

Ghost Stories
Sonic Boom Recordings