Music: Ghost in the Water: Tooth

Our Take

When artists create electronic pop music, they either tend to create a lot of complex layers or go for minimalist simplicity. However, Minnesota based duo Ghost in the Water showcase a little bit of both on their debut album Tooth. The songs on this release often move between slow, sparsely filled arrangements that give the vocalists the floor and fuller, electronic dominated compositions that have atmospheric styles. And though it does feel like this release is just a tad bit too short, it is definitely a sign of great things to come from this group.

While both vocalists are sometimes given the floor, the majority of Tooth is dominated by the group’s female singer Mandy. She has a melodic and light voice that at times is very stylistically similar to Bjork. However, while Mandy isn’t nearly as avant-garde in style as Bjork is her voice has similar pitches and stylistic elements that are sure to attract listeners. But don’t write off the male vocalist (Nathan) just yet. Although he doesn’t sing nearly as often throughout the course of Tooth in comparison to Mandy, when he does his lower pitch helps to reinforce her style and make the group’s overall sound even more powerful. It is also worth noting that the lyrical content is fairly interesting, and sometimes even a little off the wall.

As previously mentioned, the instrumentals move between sparse arrangements and faster paced electronic pop songs. This may once again generate some Bjork comparisons due to the fact that many of the earlier tracks on Tooth scale back the instrumentals in order to have the vocals fill up the majority of the space. However, the second half of the album finds Ghost in the Water exploring fuller, atmospheric arrangements that feel like a cross between electronic pop and ambient trip hop. It feels like each half of Tooth is meant on exploring one of the two different sides of this style, and the group proves that they are more than capable of handling each. It is worth noting that this release does feel just a tad bit too short, but it is also likely that listeners will be putting this album on repeat due to how addictive the instrumental work is.

Ghost in the Water’s debut comes in at just under 40 minutes, and though this is longer than most pop albums it still feels just a little bit short. However, the addictive instrumental arrangements and the group’s ability to merge two distinct styles of the same genre into one are sure to impress listeners and raise awareness of this band’s existence to quite a few people. I would like to see just a bit more variation between styles (it is a little too predictable for one half to be minimalist and the other half to be more electronically dominated) on a song to song basis, but as a whole Tooth showcases a group that already has some new and exciting ideas.

http://music.hiddenshoal.com/

Chris Dahlberg
October 31, 2008