Haunted House – Blue Ghost Blues
Artist: Haunted House
Title: Blue Ghost Blues
Catalog Number: NS 012
Format: CD, LP, MP3, FLAC
Street Date: September 13th, 2011
The blues has grown up a lot in the last ten years, since guitarist Andrew Burnes left New York for Georgia, bringing a de facto end to the powerful abstract blues of Haunted House. In the time since, a new generation — sometimes referred to as Freak Folk or New Weird America and spearheaded by Tom Carter*, Jack Rose and Ben Chasny — has followed in the footsteps of Loren Connors, John Fahey and a handful of others who have long maintained that the blues is something more than 12 bars and a backbeat.
After the demise of Haunted House, Connors continued preaching the gospel, often with his wife — the enigmatic singer Suzanne Langille — to anyone who would listen, playing a slow, distorted, reverb-drenched blues as slowly the world began to come around. Then, in the summer of 2010, the stars aligned just so: Burnes was in town for a few days, percussionist Neel Murgai was available, and the Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room was booking matinee concerts in their courtyard. The band had only existed for a brief two years and had been absent for a decade, but they picked up right where they left off with only a brief soundcheck as rehearsal. Another matter of months, and they were in the studio, recording at long last the follow-up to their 1999 Erstwhile release Up in Flames.
Looking back, maybe it isn’t that the blues has grown up. Maybe it has reverted to its youth. After all, John Lee Hooker, Son House and Mississippi Fred McDowell weren’t beholden to any 12-bar fixity. Nor was Lonnie Johnson, whose song “Haunted House” gave the band its name. They all played it how they felt it. It wasn’t until the 1960s and the British blues revival (its champion, ironically perhaps, being Connors’ beloved Eric Clapton) that the blues was codified into its current formula.
Haunted House is an unusual band. With Indian hand percussion and no bass, they don’t look like a blues band — and maybe they’re not. But they play it how they feel it. What more could you ask for?
* Check Carter and Marc Orleans’ Northern Spy release Eleven Twenty-Nine.
Featured Artists:
Loren Connors: guitar
Andrew Burnes: guitar
Suzanne Langille: vocals
Neel Murgai: daf
Kurt Gottschalk: Producer
M P Landis: Artwork
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Tracks & Samples
Stream or Download the bonus track “White Rabbit”
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Press Quotes:
“In essence, these elemental ballads – full of allusions to storms, roads and dreams – conjure a dark, mythic Americana where everyone is searching for redemption. And that sounds like the blues to me.” - Daniel Spicer, Wire Magazine
“…this is indeed the blues, mutated and delivered with spiritual force. The passion here is slow-burning, but no less affecting for it. Given a chance, these songs will catch hold and only reluctantly let you go.” - Mason Jones, Dusted
“Pretty much a dream date: one of the greatest guitarists of the modern age playing w/his vocal shadow as part of a group that are capable of navigating the furthest vectors of form while retaining an alien umbilical that runs all the way back to the source. Psychedelic blues never sounded so personally explosive… highly recommended!” – Volcanic Tongue: chosen as “Tip Of The Tongue” for the week of September 11, 2011
“If there was ever proof needed as to why Haunted House would accept such a loaded moniker, Blue Ghost Blues stands as the smoking gun. Langille’s emotional wails, coupled by the thundered music of Connors, Burnes, and Murgai, will hang on you like a specter, passing through you with the feeling of Antarctica and leaving you with the relentless sweat of Hades.” – Justin Spicer, KEXP
“Blue Ghost Blues paints incredibly vivid pictures that have little deniability of feeling. Leaving the music’s grip is pretty impossible.” – Lyn Horton, JazzTimes
“Of loren’s contemporary-era ensemble work, this unit rates amongst my favorite ; glad to have them back & in fine form.” – KFW, Mimaroglu