Nightlife

Koyaanisqatsi Suite (Phillip Glass)

"The Body Burned Away" from 'Ghost Tropic', released 11/13/00.

The sound movement on GHOST TROPIC will seem sudden to some; without warning. To others, it'll seem a very logical step in a very foreign direction. On its fifth proper full-length, Songs: Ohia has stepped outside the box and has delivered its most subtle record of fantastic depth to date. Indeed this is the most cohesive and "album-like" Songs: Ohia has ever been. The eight songs on the record sprawl out into one another, telling one long sonic tale, allowing very little room for chapter breaks or piss stops. In this regard, Lou Reed's moody classic BERLIN comes to mind as a worthy fore-bearer. But it's the strange ethnic flavor in which GHOST TROPIC is steeped that makes it stand apart from its predecessors, albums which were all received as crossing guards for the Great American lost highway. Surely this album will leave those expecting such fare scratching their heads. Blending the electro-acoustic minimalism of the David Bowie and Brian Eno Trilogy with the percussive worldliness of Tom Waits' SWORDFISHTROMBONES, the group seems to hop the globe from a British Isles folk rock influence to an Ennio Morricone-like Spaghetti Western feel to the faintest echoes of the Chinese Classical ringing like a death murmur in the distance. And the songs, they build in a slow, unconscious manner, pulsing with an intensity, but never betraying their most simple core with too much instrumentation or calculated progression. Yea! GHOST TROPIC is the first album which reveals Songs: Ohia's own Tropicalia Blues in full bloom.

But what has brought Songs: Ohia to this critical juncture? Perhaps it is purely circumstance -- that four men were brought together to play as bedfellows for a week on the great plains of Nebraska. Acted out and recorded at the Dead Space Recording Studio in the state's capital of Lincoln, GHOST TROPIC was performed by principle Songs: Ohia songwriter, singer and guitarist Jason Molina; Appendix Out principle and Ohia alumnus (having played on THE LIONESS) Alasdair Roberts of Glasgow, Scotland; Lullaby For The Working Class drummer and new Ohia recruit Shane Aspegren; and engineer Mike Mogis of Lullaby For The Working Class and Bright Eyes.

"The Body Burned Away" from 'Ghost Tropic', released 11/13/00.

Ghost Tropic

The Body Burned Away

Get 'Ghost Tropic'

Songs: Ohia - "The Body Burned Away"

Zachary Cale "Blue Moth"

From our second album Svefns og vöku skil, produced by Ólafur Arnalds and mastered by Nils Frahm.

Ljóð í sand

played live in the spark 7 hall, vienna, austria, october 16th 2002 


Untitled 1 (live)

The Stone Roses – All For One

The Soundings

Across The Wire

Drive by Cliff Martínez

ORDER 'SHADOW ON EVERYTHING' OUT ON WHARF CAT RECORDS ON 4/6
http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/bambara-shadow-on-everything-pre-order

Night’s changing 
Spiders seem to levitate in headlight 
While deer hide dumb in the bushes 
And three snakes hang from the branches of a small tree 
In front of her house where he’s climbing out of her room 

José looks back through the window 
She’s tangled up in the sheets and she’s smiling sweet 
Talking softly in her sleep 
He hops down to the driveway 
Stumbles to his car parked down the street 
And he turns the key 

The church looms on the horizon 
Like the dried up husk of some ancient bug 
Legs scratching at the rising sun 
Inside he gathers his things 
‘Round the scattered bodies of his passed out friends 
In a drunken spin 

Jimmy yawns and says, “Hey what’s goin on?” 
“Shadows just seem darker these days.” Says José 
“Anyway, I’m gonna catch a train.” 

José waits by the tracks 
Sunrise puts a squint in his eyes 
And it seems like there’s 
So many little creatures scurrying around that he can’t see 
The train comes and he starts running 
He jumps for it and he slips 

She wakes up and she sees his gone 
Just like she expected 
But she hoped she’d be wrong 
Thought this morning 
She could try it on top 
“Never get old where you were young.” 
He said while she was nodding off 
He’s kind of strange she thinks 
Yeah but so is love 
The kids in the church start to stir, 
As light pours in through the holes in the walls, 
Wondering if José is gone 
“No one ever really leaves.” 
Jimmy says through a cloud of smoke 
“Where would he go anyway?” 
The sun is up and the birds are pecking 
Pecking at something lying in the dirt

The Stone Roses – All For One

Yooung Daisy

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