Because of Ghosts This Culture of Background Noise by: Thomas Mendelovits Mon:06-Oct-08 Label: Feral Media Year: 2008 WB rating 65 out of 100

For people only passingly familiar with its structures, post-rock can be a difficult proposition. Often highly emotive music, listeners can be frustrated by the lack of lyrics (where the crux of feeling usually lies in popular music), the long song lengths and the glacially paced build-ups. The third full-length for Melbourne post-rock stalwarts Because of Ghosts ticks all these boxes simply by being an album of extended guitar motifs and syncopated drumming. Like its cheekily teasing title, however, This Culture of Background Noise cannot be accused of aloofness or impassivity – a critique often levelled at the genre by those who like their music cruder and their emotion closer to the sleeve. Over eight tracks, the depth of feeling the three-piece bring to their music is tangible and occasionally powerful. Continuing in the sprawling, elegiac vein of the Dirty Three, Because of Ghosts take pains in putting to rest the unassailable quality of the genre with minimalist, firmly decisive directness.

Recorded with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Thee Silver Mt. Zion) in Montreal, This Culture of Background Noise is rough and ready in the extreme. The forwardness of the drums in the mix may be the most striking thing about the record. Where many records rely on layers of guitar, bass and sundry melody to build atmosphere – in the process relegating the drums to the back – here, Jacob Pearce’s playing assumes the form of another lead instrument. Occasionally, this is ominous, as in the stifling climax of ‘Canadia, which builds with intensifying drums over an unchanging guitar pattern. Elsewhere, the drumming is impressionistic and loose, as on ‘In 2050, When we Know we’ll all be Dead Anyway’, where the ride cymbal accents and aversion to a groove reminds the listener of post-rock’s debt to the cool jazz drumming masters. The climax of “In 2050’ is practically a facsimile of ‘Canadia’, however, and highlights one of the main problems of the record: that of dynamic variation. While undoubtedly gifted in their chosen aesthetic, Because of Ghosts too often rely on the epic climax for their emotional power. While climaxes are employed in different ways across the album, Because of Ghosts often seem stumped regarding different ways to structure their music, relying again and again (‘Life’s Little Victories’, ‘Dreaming Is Essential’) on the quiet/loud/(opt. quiet) dynamic. In ‘The Content Is Irrelevant’ things heat up not at the end of the eight minute song but first at two and a half and then again two minutes later. However dramatic, after being initially impressive, the climaxes soon begin to feel like foregone conclusions. Teamed with an overriding bittersweet melodic quality intrinsic to many of the tracks, This Culture of Background Noise is slightly too samey to be enjoyed wholeheartedly.  

Another problem with the record is a lack of sonic variety and, more generally, of space for the instruments to breathe within. On the one hand, the raggedness of the tracks is beautiful in what sounds like their untreated recording. When you hear the guitars starting to crack in the loud bits, you know that it’s not some studio trick but rather that the band are playing with more intensity and that the amplifiers are naturally overdriving. This realism, together with the forward rawness of the drums, lends the record an emotional honesty – its most successful feature. On the other hand, though, the palette of sounds Because of Ghosts utilise borders on the mundane. Reuben Stanton’s dense, sprawling guitar is certainly a, if not the, hallmark of the band’s sound, but whether interest in his tone and playing can be sustained for over 40 minutes within the restraining, even oppressive, sonic atmosphere of the record’s production is another question entirely. Because of Ghosts certainly know how to conjure great sounds from their gear, and do so frequently throughout This Culture of Background Noise. The thing is that they often only do so between tracks. After ‘In 2050’ has climaxed, strings promisingly open up ‘Canadia’, but soon fade out into a typical framework of growing guitar and drums. Nevertheless, it is one of the album’s most beautiful moments. It is somewhat strange that the band would opt to only use strings for half a minute across the entire album’s duration. Elsewhere, interesting sonic domains are merely hinted at in interludes ending or beginning the longer, more proper, songs. ‘Heroes Are People Too’ is a fascinating two minutes of what sounds like feedback fed into itself and delayed, while the conclusion of ‘The Content is Irrelevant’ places backwards delayed guitar only as a jumping off point for the next track. Maybe the band didn’t intend for these short pieces to be interpreted as such, or maybe they should be taken as touches of colour. Whatever the case, in choosing to place them between the expansive tracks instead of exploring their nuances, Because of Ghosts pass over a potential goldmine of subtlety for their music. Some are citing This Culture of Background Noise as a return to the fundaments of their sound, but in eschewing variation, Because of Ghosts have created an album of diminishing rewards.   

Of course, to reduce music to an atomistic analysis of its moments of tension and release and melodic form is rather crude. As a record of a fine live band, This Culture of Background Noise works well as document alone. However, falling as it does between a studio album and the obviously live nature of its recording, much of the energy that comes from intraband as well as band-audience dynamics fails to translate. Listening to Because of Ghosts in one’s own private moment, it is difficult to sense the magic of where the songs may go, as is possible live. Similarly, one can imagine that, in the studio, the band must have felt the pressure of recreating their live spirit and letting things flow. While riffs and ideas do occasionally form out of osmosis, synergy is often only implied. It makes you wonder how much planning went into the recording, or whether the band had jammed these songs so many times that the fortuitous compositional by-products formed themselves in the studio. As a result, throughout the record, one gets the impression that putting Because of Ghosts’ music on a CD rushes the process of appreciation of the journey of each song. For anyone with the chance, a Because of Ghosts live show may bear more fruit for these beautiful, if not always compelling, compositions.