Cart 0
Haress | Ghosts - Limited Pressing

Wrong Speed Records

Haress | Ghosts - Limited Pressing

£20.00

WSR016

27/05/22

***Indies Only release - 300 copies***

Black vinyl

Includes free 7" flexi limited to this pressing.

This is the second Haress album, a five piece from Shropshire.

They channel the sounds of Fairport Convention, Lungfish, Papa M, Earth, Robert Wyatt, John Fahey, and Talk Talk. Taking influence and making it their own.

The first vinyl press comes with a bonus flexi disc telling the story of the week the band spent recording the album, the weirdness, the positively supernatural happenings.

On this album the core duo of Elizabeth Still and David Hand are joined by David Smyth (Mind Mountain, Kling Klang) on drums, Chris Summerlin (Hey Colossus, Kogumaza) on guitar, Thomas House (Sweet Williams, Charlottefield) on vocals and Nathan Bell (Lungfish, Human Bell) on trumpet.

In early 2020 the group travelled to a disused water mill in North Wales for a week to record with engineer Phil Booth (JT Soar) and his mobile studio. The stories of what occurred are told on the flexi disc that accompanies the LP but the group’s plans for a relaxing break in the country were scuppered by events that were either highly unusual, or positively supernatural (depending on your own beliefs in such things). Well-made plans were abandoned and the recording was forced to develop according to the location it was being made in. Chance and accident were welcomed as a collaborator rather than a saboteur and the group exited the sessions extremely freaked-out but with the makings of an album.

Ghosts is an incredible piece of work and posits Haress on their own when it comes to developing new approaches to traditional musical forms. The music contains many moments of immediate joy - the relative pop of House’s vocals on White Over, the wild horns of I Think I Think, the rush of warmth as Time To Drink morphs into focus. But it also stretches the sound Haress have carefully developed almost to breaking point with sections of music that feel like somebody - something - else is steering the ship.

The 2 final songs – Litres Into Metres and Sussurus – are joined together by a collage of site-specific sound. It was decided to add the output from a detuned long wave radio to this section on the final night of recording. Static hissed from the device but as soon as the record light illuminated, a rich male baritone voice sang loud and clear from the radio, taking a solo right where it was needed and then disappearing into space forever like the Ghosts of the title.

TRACKLISTING:1. White Over2. Time To Drink3. Rites Of Spring4. Interlude5. I Think, I Think6. Litres Into Metres / Susurrus7. Ghost Story (bonus track on flexi disc) 

 


Share this Product