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MP3 Ghost to Falco - Exotic Believers
9 MP3 Songs in this album (39:39) !
Related styles: Rock: Experimental Rock, Avant Garde: Avant-Americana, Mood: Dreamy
People who are interested in Leonard Cohen Steve Reich should consider this download.
Details:
Nowhere To Run It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Ghost to Falco feels fine.
BY CASEY JARMAN | cjarman at wweek dot com
When Eric Crespo started writing what would become Ghost to Falco’s third album, Exotic Believers, in 2007, he was fretting about the end of the world—or rather, trying to avoid contributing to the end of the world. But the books he’d been reading—by author/environmental activist Derek Jensen—didn’t leave much room for optimism. So if there’s a theme to Exotic Believers, “I guess it’s about coming to grips with the idea that humans are fucking up terribly,” Portlander Crespo says with a chuckle. “[And] even if you go live out in a shack in Nowhere, Montana, you’re not going to get away [from it]. As much as you think in your head and in your dreams that you can, you’re not going to.”
If it sounds like a bummer of an album, well, we’d be lying to call it upbeat. But as purging goes, Exotic Believers is quite an exercise. Crespo’s lyrical monologues dart and dive between sharp, crusty riffs and bursts of unpredictable instrumentation from dozens of notable local musicians that include the Shaky Hands’ Nick Delffs, Dragging an Ox Through Water’s Brian Mumford and Horse Feathers’ Heather Broderick. At times, as on the Elephant Six-esque opener “Black Holes” and “Secrets of the Free,” Crespo scrambles and hollers his demands; at other times he’s a voice of calm, questioning realism—singing as if explaining the human race to an alien (“We’re just trying to survive/ And we invent things and we die/ The generations carry on,” he sings on “Everything Alive.”). Crespo presents his existential crisis alongside the natural one—I hesitate to use the word “spiritual,” as God never really comes into the equation.
The s-word doesn’t scare Crespo. “I think that’s the right word,” says the 28-year-old songwriter, who moved to Portland from his home state of North Carolina in 2001. “I think everyone, no matter if they acknowledge it or not, has to have some kind of spiritual release—whether it’s shopping or television or sports or church. Music didn’t start that way for me, but when I come to realize what it is in my life, it’s like religion. It fulfills the same need.”
If music is Crespo’s religion, the upstart Portland label Infinite Front is his new church. Though Crespo and GtF bandmate Ryne Warner dreamed up the imprint, it will be collectively run by a number of like-minded artists. Infinite Front’s launch party this Saturday presents releases by GtF, Ohioan and a four-way split 7-inch record featuring those bands alongside Dragging an Ox Through Water and Castanets. It’s a musically like-minded collective: All these artists teeter on the divide between melodic songwriting and noisy experimentation, and all analyze (however uniquely) big-picture issues of consciousness and existence in their lyrics.
But what good is a record label, or a new album—even one as epic as Exotic Believers—in the face of the impending Armageddon? Crespo says there’s value in the simple things. “You’ve gotta make yourself happy and feel alive,” he says. “I think it’s good for the world when people feel alive.”
-Willamette Week
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There''s a new label in town. Infinite Front''s launch party will be celebrated with a split 7-inch from all four artists performing tonight. The 7-inch has two songs per side, but they play simultaneously; you''ll need to pan your stereo to the left or right speaker to hear each song individually. There''s more: both Ghost to Falco and Ohioan are releasing new albums tonight, and they''re both excellent. Ghost to Falco''s Exotic Believers tromps all over a moody, craggy landscape with stoner rock jags, warped folk mumbling, sonic squeals, and smooth strums. It''s a stormy record, but not a dark one—Ghost to Falco''s Eric Crespo knows the value of properly illuminating those rolling, boiling clouds with enough light so you can see ''em in their full, dramatic intensity... NL
-The Portland Mercury
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REVIEW OF THE NEW ALBUM, "EXOTIC BELIEVERS," from YES! WEEKLY:
"There’s only one way to classify the sophomore effort of Chapel Hill refugee Eric Crespo’s project Ghost to Falco and that would be as “indescribable,” though maybe “breathtaking” would suffice as well. As the follow-up to 2007’s Like This Forever, Exotic Believers furthers Crespo’s exploration into the impossible and makes countless side trips along the way. Even with a cast of more than 30 Portland musicians in the fold, Exotic Believers sounds surprisingly cohesive in an unpredictable sort of way. The only constant is the slightly cold and dirty feeling with which the listener is left after each of the album’s nine tracks. From the noise-laden opener “Black Holes” and it’s mournful successor “Risen” to the subterranean low-end growl of the epic “Comfort Series #2,” there’s an unsettling feeling to be gathered from both the wild artistic ambitions and the abstruse anti-war message hidden within Crespo’s unconventional meter. Of course, there’s a bit of context missing on the album, as Ghost to Falco is a multimedia project as well. Live shows complete the picture with disquieting imagery to perfectly parallel the incongruence of the record. It’s always a risky proposition to conjoin the words “art” and “rock,” but Exotic Believers does so to stirring effect."
YES! WEEKLY:
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REVIEW OF THE NEW ALBUM, "EXOTIC BELIEVERS," FROM ITALIAN WEB-ZINE, KOMAKINO:
The first track of this record is explosive. No swell, just a bomb exploding. Rancid cello notes, angry satured male vocals. Then it abruptly stops, - and on the following Risen You''ll hear church bells tolling, - mournful violin and cello will walk you to the Sunday requiem mass, - a disarming promenade into pain finally ruined by distortion. Then this guy grabs back his folk guitar, and starts a trembling sad song, suddenly turning into a big wave of slow-hard rock, - heavy bass lines, - a short term storm in his bedroom, soon getting calmer.
Homebased in Portland, Oregon, USA, started in late 2001 - Ghost to Falco is mainly a one-man project, Eric Crespo''s one, who co-founded Infinitefront rec: emotive vocals, a sort of juxtaposition of rage and powerless inner riot, - droning sounds and psychic songwriting, - where Into the missions/quiet at home looks like a song from a cotton field, Greater good is a free-indie / post-rock tsunami, Everything alive is a meditative and confessional, Lords of the high country is a final dreamy song inside another song, left-right panning in your ears. Exotic Believers is a different record, as coordinate, i can just cite Gowns for the neighbourghood.
-Komakino Zine
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Portland''s Ghost to Falco—functionally the solo project of songwriter Eric Crespo— is most often described with words evoking brokenness: disjointed, fragmented, elliptical. Crespo''s music seems more fragile than anything, though. He hangs tones like threads of linen, loosely weaving together meandering melodies with gently moaned vocals. His Pacific Northwest locale reveals plenty to fans of, say, Phil Elverum or Tara Jane O''Neil, both of whom (like Crespo) render their songs with a demanding intimacy, as if the listener is being invited into a private thought. It''s vulnerable and heart-swollen, yes, but—again—anything but broken.
-The Independent Weekly (Chapel Hill/Durham/Raleigh, NC)
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