Ghost Cartridge - looking into people's windows (30/30) [Ambient Electronica]

Conflicting online information is muddying my investigative efforts somewhat, but I believe Ghost Cartridge is mostly Nate Schmold, and maybe, sometimes, possibly Scott (The EquAzn) Lee, but mostly Nate, who used to lurk behind the Mantrakid moniker, run a record label and be more underground hip hop inclined, who then threw himself into game design and studio management work and, if my math is correct, is probably having his mid-life crisis about now, and decided to get back into the music production game - maybe or maybe not whilst wearing leather trousers and driving a red convertible sports car - but at least having decided his music is going to age gracefully by ditching the swagger and kick drums and floating sedately towards the light, unfeasibly suspended on ambient electronic thermals. Or something like that. Or not. What I do know is that he's a creative, multi-media soul, just peep his website - his visual work is as appealing as his audio endeavour, and I really like his music.

His new album, the either stalker-like, sneakily or just curiously (delete as applicable) entitled "looking into people’s windows" is a curious (I reckon) imagining of the lives, hopes, dreams, sadness and reality going on the other side of the windows and building walls you pass, as you walk alone through an urban environment, the tales hinted at by the light and shadowy silhouettes revealed through windows, or by beams of light sneaking through the middle or edges of ill-fitting curtains.

The album is suitably full of sonic wonder, as soap opera after soap opera unfolds with every few steps or glance upwards at tall apartment blocks, kicking off with the optimistic, low-gravity, twinkling and well-entitled "a loving couple talks abut their future together". Next up is the track that really sucked me into the album, the somewhat disturbingly named, "bugs all over me", that brushes off the pest control issues with its ambient sensibility, although the skittering percussion could possibly hint at the patter of tiny, unwanted feet behind your kitchen units; personally, I just marvel at the blend of Latinesque programming and dreamy atmospherics.

And so the album continues. There are fourteen tracks on the this wide-ranging exploration of the ambient condition, and I'll be damned if I'm going to describe them all - there are only so many words to describe ambient music in my world, although the ambient geeks would disagree. It's a serious trip though, that takes in ethereal beat making - my favourite cuts, to modular stargazing, slightly more serious sci-fi soundtracks for abandoned space station exploration, some classically aping cinematic ambient dramatics; with the mood darkening somewhat in the album's final third, but by that time you'll be quite happy to go with the flow.

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Playlist Companion

Find them in the Slowtronic Playlist.