Lance Wyoming and Tony Haitch are two guitarists/producers from Leicestershire and London and are the duo behind the alternative, electronic and metal sounds of Wander as Ghosts. Their debut album [new/age/dream /thrash] has been released through Jungle Records. When I first listened to this album it started to be a bit of an enigma. The title alone may raise an eyebrow, these are words that you don’t usually see in the same sentence.
The opening intro is a mellow spacey piece of music with the engaging voice of the guardian who lives on a floating island but don’t get to comfy because your about to be hit with the first heavy pounding thrash, electronic track of the album, 'The Plasticine Du Jour'. Start that helicopter head swinging and enjoy the Japanese rock guitar and thumping drums.
'Ketsuban’ and 'Spiders With Human Teeth’ (best track name on the album!) are for the industrial and electronic fans. Full of beeps, chimes, drum machine, guitar riffs, whispering and growling vocals, back ground chanting and a shit load of other things. I still have to remind myself that this is a duo doing all this. Track five I can’t even type so I’m skipping to track six, not literally though. 'UtU’ is again a screaming, growly vocal electronic mix. A bit like the Aphex Twins on acid which ends on some funky prog. Yes you read that right funky prog.
One of the catchiest tracks on the album is 'Mass’. This song is very well arranged and I bet there are a lot of commercial bands out there that would have loved to have written this track, Underworld being one I think.
'Pindaya’ is a techno ambient tune that just flows effortlessly along with the addition of a short but very sweet bass line. The ending of 'Pindaya’ is seamlessly stitched to the start of 'Vipassana', which is another techno ambient track but with just a bit more bite. That bite coming from heavy kick ass guitar and floor thumping drums, two songs that were made for each other.
'Lum’ is the last track on [new/age/dream/trash]. It has some really good sections to it but the main tune is just a bit to pop compared the all the other tracks. You have to play it through though because the Guardian returns with a final message. I love that guy, more please.
This album is not really an enigma, it is two music loving guys that don’t want to be pigeon holed into any one genre and instead have done a mash up of lots of genres. Using their laptops, 808, guitars and anything that they can get their hands on they have created everything from ambient to death metal, including some video game music that I think I can pin point but I’m not telling you where. I hope that there are enough people out there that will listen to this album and enjoy it for what it is, a musical creation by two talented musicians in two tiny rooms.
