Feverdreams - "Name Like A Ghost"
(Audiofile Round Tapes 2000, CDR)
Feverdreams - "Name Like A Ghost"
(Audiofile Round Tapes 2000, CDR)
From Aural Innovations #16 (June 2001)
The cover offers images that are almost dark in nature; the name strikes me as odd, the inner sleeve contains not much information whatsoever! Who are the Musicians? Where are they from? Where do I begin?
I Place the CD in the player, strap on my headphones and lie back prepared to take whatever is to come with an open mind. It was a good job that I did this for the first sound chilled me to the marrow. I found myself instantly submerged inside a place where imagination was a working tool, and sound was the muse for that tools creative offerings. I also hazard a guess at this being one person rather than a band.
The first of the thirteen pieces on this disc is only two-minute fifteen seconds but it leaps at the ears with the purpose of assaulting and shattering the senses with what I can only term as Sonic Attack. It overwhelms the mental awareness and drives straight through the brain; the sounds are haunting and direct, hard and shrill an interesting start to what seems like experimental noise in essence. After a brief pause it continues as track two emerges in a similar mould, over its four minutes it slowly decreases in sound level from the manic opening of the disc. Some parts are simple yet they provide interesting atmospheres, others are totally silent giving the listener time to think and take the initiative to go further inside.
From the third track to the thirteenth we have similar atmospheres being constructed here, these experimental electronic soundscapes remind me in certain ways of Tangerine Dream's 'Electronic Meditation' and 'Zeit' because there are not many sequencer patterns at all, and there is not much in the way of musical notes. 'Name Like a Ghost' would be an ideal horror film soundtrack because it stirs an eerie perception and it would also give you a good base for LSD experimentation, for we all know how sounds can affect you especially when acid is involved! This album would make a fitting scene for that purpose for it takes on elements that are mainly set in noise expansion as with Tangerine Dream but it occasionally incorporates what sounds like backwards samples. On track eleven we have a strange vocal commentary of a 'phone in' radio conversation debating Christianity and the ethics of the bible. What's that all about then? All are used to good effect though and for forty-nine minutes we have a rather chaotic/horrifying journey through it's Creators mind. Very dark and somewhat manic, interesting! I guess that there are another four albums by Fever Dreams out there somewhere because the cover states FD#5. I like this album and would like to hear the others, if any are available?
'Name Like a Ghost' allows you to indulge and revel in freak out electronic noises and sounds that take you to wherever you want to go! That is the beauty of it. Each time would be different, Very atmospheric. I would advise getting hold of this album if you still have a place in your heart for the oddity that is experimental electronica of the acidic flavour. It is not just one or two twenty-minute pieces here; it is a sort of concept thing maybe? With some tracks lasting one minute others four or five, the longest is not over seven minutes so it weaves and opens all sorts of possibilities. This one is for the dedicated followers of Electronic Meditation!
For more information you can email Feverdreams at jlloyd@aol.com.
Email Audiofile Round Tapes at litlgrey@ix.netcom.com.
Reviewed by Albert Pollard