Ghost Stories

Neil Campbell Collective

Album review by Alicia Rose

In this Iron Age of darkness there is little ‘light’ relief.

For those seeking solace it would be advantageous to listen to Ghost Stories, the newly released album by composer and guitarist Neil Campbell in alliance with Anne Taft and Michael Beiert. For a timeless thirty-eight minutes and forty-eight seconds this atmospheric arrangement of unfolding melody suspended me. In a place of repetitive melancholy and ecstatic peace of mind you can venture in perpetual balance. The chord trickling beauty of this harmonious sound will slip discreetly into your alpha, beta and theta states and whence there, hold you transcendentally.

Anne Taft’s wordless vocals rise and fall with subtle propulsion whilst Campbell’s distinct strings accord with visionary soundscapes from German Composer Beiert. The collective reaches forward to give ethereal reminder of celestial presence and denotes emotive attendance. This music is part of a journey and those who choose to indulge will indefinitely be pleasured on many planes. Listen and lose the self in delicate repetition and then return to a point of remembrance and acknowledgment.

Campbell’s conceptual music is a myriad movement which unravels through simplistic terms of pattern. The young Liverpudlian composer experiments through crossed realms of the classical world of sound and achieves strikingly delicate yet empowering listening.

Track ten, PSS, includes Taft’s sweet tipped sung words of Samuel Beckett.

The album sleeve is understated class.

If only to criticise, the run time is over too soon. Turn this minor slight on its head you will want to play Ghost Stories again and again.

Available for purchase from http://cdbaby.com/cd/ncampbell5
www.neilcampbellcollective.com

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