Imaginary Mountains - Ghost Rhythms

[XavGel]

Hello folks, I hope you're all well in those strange times. I will buy to support artists I love this may 1st, as Bandcamp doesn't take its cut on sales to support artists and labels !
Ghost Rhythms issued two new tracks for this special date, in their EP "Imaginary Mountains". The new tracks are "Le Mont Analogue" and "Path to Oyapock".
All music was composed, arranged and executed during lockdown.
https://ghostrhythms.bandcamp.com/al...nary-mountains
The main theme, of course, is imaginary mountains found on old maps, but it is also all those mountains - even inner mountains - that we climb, if only in dreams.
I hope you'll like the new titles. I'm very proud of the work.
It's a new collaboration between myself and Camille Petit, the same team that composed Madeleine, and that's kind of a come-back, as a writing pair !
Cheers everyone, stay safe ! Xavier (Ghost Rhythms)

[XavGel]

New punk-jazz-prog tune, with space guitar and accordion ! Enjoy !
https://ghostrhythms.bandcamp.com/track/coudreaus-dream

[nosebone]

Really nice!

Reminds me of UZ

[XavGel]

Really nice!

Reminds me of UZ

Thanks a lot !!!

[XavGel]

This friday we will add a new tune called TUMUC HUMAC to our Imaginary Mountains. Here's a teaser :
https://www.facebook.com/GhostRhythm...60057267432898

We hope you'll like it !
And we'll launch preorders for signed vinyls (limited edition, 100).

Thanks for listening !

Xavier

[Steve F.]

Xavier

here is a simple minded question from a simple-minded person.

If I buy "Imaginary Mountains" and you ADD to it after I buy it, am I able to hear and download the new additions as you add to it?

Thanks!

Mr Exquis!

[battema]

^^ Once you buy it, you can totally get the new stuff that's added later.

[Steve F.]

^^ Once you buy it, you can totally get the new stuff that's added later.

You'd hope that I would have know this, but I didn't....

[XavGel]

You'd hope that I would have know this, but I didn't....

Well, to be honest, I think if you want to have it cleanly catalogued in your player, you have to download again the entire thing (but I don't really know). There's another BIG tune to come in say two weeks, and then the vinyl set will be OK. We just have to add some interludes for the CD version to be complete after that.

[XavGel]

*BANDCAMP FRIDAY : NEW RELEASE AND PREORDERS*

Hello people ! We're thrilled to announce you that Bandcamp Friday is on from midnight to midnight (US time, so from 7 to 7 in Europe), and that we just released an EPIC called Tumuc Humac on our Imaginary Mountains LP.

https://ghostrhythms.bandcamp.com/al...nary-mountains

We also put PREORDERS for SIGNED VINYLS (limited edition 100) with or without a beautiful map pointing some of the imaginary places we wrote about, and also for CDs.

Here's what you have to know about Tumuc Humac :

In the language of the Apalam and Wayana peoples, Tumucumaque means "the mountain rock symbolizing the struggle between the shaman and the spirits".

The Tumuc Humac mounts (or Tumuk Humak, or Tumucumaque) in French Guiana really are a place of struggle, but for another reason : they don't even exist. They're just hills, that some cartographers, like Henri Coudreau or Jules Crevaux, elevated into mountains because it served their purpose : to draw a line, a cartographical line, between lands.

So there you are : this is the sound of a struggle, between the shaman and the spirits, between the cartographer and the land he describes and really re-shapes, between the people who live there and the people who took property of the land, between what we call "physical reality" and what our mind makes us see.

We fought the good fight to make it sound right, and we hope you'll like it. It's a 9/8 piece with lots of tricks and turns.

Written by Camille Petit and myself, played by Ghost Rhythms and beautifully mixed by Tom Namias !

[thedunno]

Wow, that new track is superb. Absolutely love it.

This really turned into a really good EP, or mini album. 32 minutes already.

Xavier? Is this EP finished now? With other words, can I download the flacs and burn them on CD or do I better wait until more tracks are added?

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Well, to be honest, I think if you want to have it cleanly catalogued in your player, you have to download again the entire thing (but I don't really know). There's another BIG tune to come in say two weeks, and then the vinyl set will be OK. We just have to add some interludes for the CD version to be complete after that.

Glad to hear a CD version is planned.

[XavGel]

Wow, that new track is superb. Absolutely love it.

This really turned into a really good EP, or mini album. 32 minutes already.

Xavier? Is this EP finished now? With other words, can I download the flacs and burn them on CD or do I better wait until more tracks are added?

Thank you !!
There's another epic track that will be out in a couple of weeks, and then the album will be complete. We work on some interludes for the digital and CD version.
So do NOT burn your CD already !

Regards
Xavier

[XavGel]

Glad to hear a CD version is planned.

Yes !

[XavGel]

*BANDCAMP FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER*
https://ghostrhythms.bandcamp.com/al...nary-mountains
New track and last epic for our Imaginary Mountains album ! It's called Horizontal Ascension and features a wild violin solo by Augustin Lusson (DON'T MISS IT), a trippy/melancholic cello chorus, some atmospheric changes, some rhythmic tricks, a voice, drums that made my arms ache for one week, an harpsichord, a "Nik Bartsch kind-of" moment, a fun bass line, all written by Camille and myself and engineered by Tom Namias.
It's been quite a ride to do this album during the Covid-Times ; it started as an EP, and then something happened and all of a sudden a blast of creativity and overwhelming joy of composing, sharing ideas and making plans did take an hold on us two (Camille and I), something we didn't quite experienced since we did Madeleine, five years ago. So here you are, with a nearly completed album (just short of transitions and little interludes we're not finished with yet), two epics (Tumuc Humac and Horizontal Ascension), and a lot of funny things to hear. We are very proud of the work, and I'd like to dedicate this whole ride to two persons I knew which were kind of "horizontal ascensionists" of their own : Xavier Garnerin, and Donald Ward.
I hope you'll hear the joy in this.
Peace and love to all of you - yeah, I kind of still think those words mean something.
Xavier Gélard (drums and quite wordy stuff)
P.S. : get everything you can from Cuneiform Records

[Polypet]

Well, to be honest, I think if you want to have it cleanly catalogued in your player, you have to download again the entire thing (but I don't really know). There's another BIG tune to come in say two weeks, and then the vinyl set will be OK. We just have to add some interludes for the CD version to be complete after that.

Yes, i think you're correct about the downloading again. It's what i've been doing with Amy D's Corona Sonora project. Personally, i prefer to wait until all "adding" is done, so as to download the album proper. But it is a nice BC feature, if rather unintuitive

BTW: Really excellent stuff, Xavier

[per anporth]

Yes, i think you're correct about the downloading again. It's what i've been doing with Amy D's Corona Sonora project. Personally, i prefer to wait until all "adding" is done, so as to download the album proper. But it is a nice BC feature, if rather unintuitive

BTW: Really excellent stuff, Xavier

Yes, this is the habit I've got into, Polypet - whilst it's a really nice feature in Bandcamp that you can download "taster" tracks in advance of full release, it can muddy up track listing/ordering in digital music players subsequently. With this fantastic Ghost Rhythms release, it's been fun to have the album grow organically, as it were - but I have found that track ordering has been...fluid (as you'd expect from mountains that are imaginary, rather than geologically stable!).

[JKL2000]

I’ve bought and Wishlisted a couple of Ghost Rhythms releases and really like what I’ve heard. Excellent stuff, very original accessible but rewarding.

[XavGel]

I’ve bought and Wishlisted a couple of Ghost Rhythms releases and really like what I’ve heard. Excellent stuff, very original accessible but rewarding.

Thanks a lot for supporting !

[XavGel]

With a little Gif from a friend :
Some hynotical gif that artist Tanja Jeremić made as a response to Tumuc Humac, second track of the album.
Have a good trip !
youtu.be/N8gKVU2jwuw

[Steve F.]

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[Sputnik]

Got the CD from Wayside a couple of days ago, spun it for the first time last night. Another winner from Ghost Rhythms! Just something about the combination of elements in the band's music that really grabs me. Sometimes a bit on the "Chamber Prog" side, but unlike a lot of that stuff, unafraid to rock out, albeit in a rather sophisticated way. Very interesting stuff that reveals itself over multiple listens, can't wait to dig in further.

So happy you did a CD version, I jumped on it the minute I saw it available!

Bill

[NogbadTheBad]

Agree, their music grows on me after repeated listens, might end up being up there with Madeleine.

[Steve F.]

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and it's a lockdown album! Makes it even more impressive, imo.


---

"Imaginary Mountains​’ music was born in the middle of the french lockdown in March 2020 ; as the COVID spread in the country of France and all over the world, everyone was quarantined, gigs cancelled, and weekly rehearsals became impossible.
So Camille Petit and Xavier Gélard, ​Ghost Rhythms​’ leaders, decided to try to make, like many musicians, music even if distance complicated things, and to record at home.
This was a premiere, as all of Ghost Rhythms’ music until then was recorded in a studio environment, and therefore no home studio recording processes prevailed.
It was not quite possible to record drums properly, so the pair agreed to work on short scaled compositions that involved the orchestral side of the band : accordion, cello, flute, sax, guitars, bass and piano. Those instruments were heavily featured on the first tracks to be made, ​Sierra de Tamuraque​ and O​ ayana Circles​.
As weeks passed, things became serious, as guitarist and sound engineer Tom Namias gave the tunes a proper sound and a depth that were very inspirational. Soon more short-scaled compositions emerged, ​Path to Oyapock, le Mont Analogue ​and Vie de Raymond Maufrais​, that showcased the band’s ability to produce a multi-layered but nevertheless cohesive sound.
So it’s no surprise that the planned EP turned into something bigger, ambitious, that became Imaginary Mountains​.
One composition was pivotal in that process. ​Coudreau’s Dream​, written with no drums in mind, was edited and mixed with drums recorded for another project. This xenochronic experiment (as Zappa, perhaps, would have said), mixing two different times, two different pieces, and two different frames of mind, did trigger a thirst for larger-scaled compositions, with Camille Petit and Xavier Gélard as writers and Tom Namias as a very able sound expert.
The short scaled compositions prepared the band to try to assemble larger pieces, and they were up to it since recording drums in a studio became possible again. The first of these “epics”,​ Tumuc Humac​, proved to be one of the most complex the band had to offer.
Its oscillation between binary and ternary rhythms, hard rock and chamber music, and the perceptive ambiguity on which it is based makes it a great challenge for musicians to play and a new step in Gélard and Petit’s work around long forms.
The piece borrows its title from a geographic aberration: in the 1800’s, some cartographers were certain mountains existed in Guyana ; they thought so, as every land needed natural frontiers. So they made maps that included Tumuc Humac mountains, even though those were merely hills, and explorers soon sought the Tumuc Humac mountains in the area, a search that soon became a mystical one, as was the Eldorado.
This slight frontier between imagination and reality - as more that one explorer, like the young Raymond Maufrais, devoted his life to find those mountains, that only existed on paper - proved to be a perfect frame for Ghost Rhythms’ new compositions, which were to explore the way dreams, thoughts and concepts shape our reality.
The Tumuc Humac “line” gave most of the compositions their title (Sierra de Tamuraque, Path to Oyapock, Oayana Circles, Coudreau’s dream, Vie de Raymond Maufrais and of course Tumuc Humac took their name from the narrative surrounding Tumuc Humac’s legend), but another “line” grew as the project of an LP took shape.
The broader scope of the imaginary mountains, which stood for all imaginary places we travel to and imaginary ascensions we make in our lives, gave birth to Le Mont Analogue (a title borrowed from René Daumal’s esoteric novel that inspired Jodorowksi’s ​Holy Mountain)​ and to ​Horizontal Ascension​, a 10’ epic whose rhythmic changes and violin solo are much indebted to both Mahavishnu Orchestra and Nik Bartsch. For the first time in the band’s history, some lyrics blurrily appear in an otherwise instrumental context. The french words, in a mystical vein not so far from René Daumal’s esoteric approach, treat mountains - and in fact, all that exists - as waves.
The interludes, named “​GR​”, are a pun on “Ghost Rhythms” initials, but also on french names for trekking ways (“GR” stands for “sentiers de Grande Randonnée” i.e. “Long Hiking Trail”). Those atmospheric interludes, a tradition in the band’s recording history since ​Sept Cercles (2008) were done last, by manipulating sounds that were used in the record, and saxophone solos specifically made for that purpose.
As a record, Imaginary Mountains signs Camille Petit and Xavier Gélard’s collaborative writing return. Their work was highly praised when their cinematic album ​Madeleine was released in 2015. The pair’s strong interaction shows again in the variety of musical forms, choice of timbres, and cohesiveness.

[Sputnik]

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and it's a lockdown album! Makes it even more impressive, imo....

That IS impressive! Sounds very organic and natural to me. Beautiful sounding record, really. Great info there, thanks for posting!

Bill