Put on your headphones and let Ghoste happily haunt your ears.
by Patrick O’Heffernan
When Jenny Bruce turned 50, she decided to become Ghoste – that’s right, “Ghoste” with an “e”. She says the name came to her in a vivid dream of being on stage with the word floating behind her.
But she also recalls her mother telling her that when a woman becomes 50, she becomes invisible, like a ghost. But as anyone who has heard her EP Firefly in a Jar or has seen her at the Rockwood Music Hall in NYC knows well, invisibility is not in her toolbox. So, she decided to celebrate the half-century mark by upping her visibility and adding ethereal electro-pop to her considerable talents and accomplishment as a guitar-based singer/songwriter – and rebranding herself as Ghoste.
The produce of that decision is an unburdened, mesmerizing self-titled album that will transport you into her weightless, ageless, world of very much alive electric, and electrifying music. Ghoste is a shining gem of multi-layered emotion brimming with melancholy, passion, imagery, longing, and self- confidence.
Produced with Matt Anthony at his Engine Sound Studio, Ghoste continues a ten-year successful run these two superbly talented artists have had bringing Bruce’s songs to the world in three Jenny Bruce albums and placements in dozens of TV shows like Dawson’s Creek, All My Children, The Young and the Restless, and Ghost Whisperer and independent films. Their latest creation, Ghoste, blends Bruce/Ghoste’s songbird voice with Anthony’s ethereal landscapes for an adventure in your headphones (and do wear headphones so you can hear the loon call in “Deep Water”).
While the album evokes Ghoste’s haunting musical spirit, each song is different as she releases her voice from the more constrained precision of her Jenny Bruce creations. They range from the hypnotic “Haunted” with Ghoste’s longing, urgent vocals embedding the line I am haunted in your subconscious, to the ethereal soundscape of “Deep Water” with Anthony’ exquisite sonic details accenting Ghoste’s voice, to the very personal and directly into your ears “Stay Up With Me Tonight”, to the syncopated “Back to Life” and “Slow Motion”, and many songs in between.
My favorite – not an easy choice to make with so much musical richness in a single album – is “Hold On”. I love to close my eyes, relax my mind and follow Ghoste’s beautifully modulated singing as it rises and falls, comes intimately close, and then retreats into far recesses in my mind, leaving behind the hook, hold on, hold on.
Ghoste premiered the album the night before Halloween on launchglobaltv.com and hopes to tour it through hunted venues when touring is back on the table. In the meantime, put on your headphones, close your eyes, and let Ghoste happily haunt your ears.
Ghoste, released 10/30/20 is available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon.com and can be streamed on Spotify.
Ghoste. https://www.ghostenyc.com/. Video at https://bit.ly/2JrjIoR