Hintermass

As with all things Ghost Box, this one is worth its price for Julian House’s artwork alone. His signature style is always lush and dreamy, a perfect compliment to the brand of soft focus nostalgia that the label trades in. Every record that comes out of that house seems to be a bit like nodding off on the hottest day in early June while a junior high film strip slowly melts in front of your flickering eyelids. The latest project to grace those halls is definitely falling into form, though its a bit breezier than some in the stable. This may well have to do with Jon Brooks’s involvement. Brooks is better known around most parts as The Advisory Circle, a project with its own special brand of pastoral dreamwave. Brooks’s last album under the moniker, From Out Here was one of RSTB’s favorites of 2014 and he steps up to similar expectations as Hintermass.

The project graduates from a short form release for the label’s 7″ Study Series and makes good on the full length expansion, taking full advantage of the room to stretch out. Aside from the discernible talents of Brooks the other half of Hintermass is comprised of Seeland and Ex-Broadcast member Tim Felton, who adds his dream-stung vocals to the mix and gives the album much of its autumnal shading. The record winds its way unhurriedly, interspersing vocal tracks with the gentle burble of Kosmiche interludes, bringing the record into a realm that splits the divide between the most emotionally bare moments of Super Furry Animals, the psych folk patter of Roy Harper and the progressive whims of Popul Vuh or Witthüser + Westrupp. Its hard to go wrong with anything stamped with the Ghost Box insignia and this is another example of just how true that is.

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