AEM007 Pet Ghost Project

Pet Ghost Project started off as a one man band, the moniker of Seat­tle based singer, song­writer, and mul­ti­in­stru­men­tal­ist Justin Stivers. A few years ago, Stivers moved to the Big Apple where he has immersed him­self in Brooklyn’s bustling indie scene. In the stu­dio, Stivers is a “one man wreck­ing crew” who stacks lay­ers upon layer of him­self to build a huge sound. On stage and increas­ingly in the stu­dio, Justin Gon­za­lez and Jake More lend their skills to the mix. All multi-instrumentalists, the three mem­bers of Pet Ghost Project switch off on gui­tar, per­cus­sion, bass, and key­boards. The result is a fun and slightly chaotic live show, which is def­i­nitely worth check­ing out if you have the chance.

But enough bio­graph­i­cal information—have those MP3s fin­ishedz down­load­ing yet? If you have a slow con­nec­tion it may take a few min­utes. And I’ll give you another minute to drag them onto your 160 GB iPod Touch and wait it to synch. When you’re plugged in and ready to go, read on.

In the words of Joni Mitchell, “they paved par­adise and put up a park­ing lot.” Ever since the dawn of civ­i­liza­tion there have been those who’ve longed for a sim­ple time. Mitchell felt this urge, so did Thoreau, Rousseau, Proust, Orwell… When blue­grass musi­cians in Appalachia first saw tape recorders they called them song-suckers and the pop­u­lar­ity of films such as The Ter­mi­na­tor and The Matrix demon­strate that our fear of tech­nol­ogy has not dis­ap­peared in recent years. So yes, the clash between tech­nol­ogy and nature isn’t exactly a new theme, but Pet Ghost Project addresses it in a nuanced and refresh­ingly enter­tain­ing way. Which brings us to the A-side “Age of Auto­mat­ics,” so plug in those Bose noise-canceling head­phones and press play.

Let’s begin by stat­ing the obvi­ous; the song is catchy as hell. A few lis­tens and the melodic hook will be per­ma­nently lodged in the dark­est reaches of your mind. And the per­sis­tent bell in the back­ground, coun­ter­point to a softly clank­ing gui­tar, twin­kles play­fully like Christ­mas in July. Stivers orig­i­nally envi­sioned the song as a sim­ple acoustic ditty, but it took on a new life in pro­duc­tion. The final mix is orches­trated in a way that brings to mind Andrew Bird. Bursts of emo­tional raw­ness shine through a rich and glossy indie aes­thetic. Per­haps such depar­ture from its sim­ple roots was the only log­i­cal pro­gres­sion for a song address­ing the gray area between nature and tech­nol­ogy. The music is a bat­tle­ground on which this con­flict is resolved… or not resolved despite mutual destruction?

One moment Stivers is singing in a breathy telephone-box voice and the next moment he’s shout­ing spas­ti­cally through a tank of reverb. Or rather, through a large and rever­ber­ant bathroom—no syn­thet­ics involved, the only ingre­di­ents pas­sion and per­haps a lit­tle alcohol.

Sung: We’re not afraid, we’re not afraid of dan­ger. We keep it close, we wel­come in a stranger.

Shouted: I couldn’t laugh, I couldn’t force myself to think about it. I wouldn’t try, I wouldn’t try my luck to state the truth yeah.

After a lengthy bridge the main theme returns but absent are the raw reverb drenched shouts. Only one breathy voice remains, the city has devoured the country…

Which brings us to the B-side “They Built a City in my Coun­try Mind.” Stivers calls it a vocal fea­ture but the human voice is used pri­mar­ily for its tone and tim­bre, as another instru­ment. He recorded the song solo, stack­ing one layer at a time, and the process isn’t obscured by the final result. The record­ing begins with a descend­ing falsetto pat­tern. As this pat­tern con­tin­ues, instru­ments and sound effects (amongst which chirp­ing birds stand out par­tic­u­larly) enter grad­u­ally, build­ing around it. And about 1:30 into the song the build finally breaks, unleash­ing a blast of chaos. Enter dis­torted elec­tric gui­tars. Enter heavy drum beat. Exit (or sim­ply drowned out?) acoustic strum­ming, birds singing. The city has arrived. Con­tinue the soft falset­tos, but re-contextualized, against the back­drop of rock. Sud­denly in a brief calm, the soft har­mon­ics of gui­tar and the sound of pick against string ring out. Calm again, but the build con­tin­ues… It’s over 3 min­utes before lyrics come in, “they built a city in my coun­try mind.” The vocal melody is mir­rored on dis­torted gui­tar, and the two melt together to cre­ate one unique voice, nei­ther gui­tar nor human. And maybe that’s the per­fect com­pro­mise. In other words, you don’t have to take off those head­phones, but maybe next time you’ll take your iPod Touch on a walk down some peace­ful coun­try road.

Nate Green­berg

Side A — Age of Automatics Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Side B — They Built a City in My Coun­try Mind Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

[[[Down­load the 7-inch]]]

Pet Ghost Project also has 2 LPs and an EP in the Ampeater Catalog