:: Record Review

Thee Moths

A Small Glass Ghost
(Stolenwine; 2003)

Rating: 70%

The second full-length from this Scottish/Canadian duo (Alex Button hails from Dundee and Dominque Ferraton from Montreal), A Small Glass Ghost was created through, as they put it, “transatlantic cassettes and flying visits.” Living three thousand miles apart seems to create a need for such a set up, even if it does little to offer their records a linear or complete feel. As such, it’s impossible to look at this record as anything except a large collection of stunted ideas, finding its worth as much in the way each is connected as the songs/parts/sections/ideas themselves.

“A Small Glass Ghost” opens with a hymnal, a capella chant that lays somewhere between a drastically simplified version of the Beach Boys’ “Our Prayer” (the planned opener on their lost masterpiece, SMiLE, later released on 20/20) and an unrefined Von-era Sigur Rós demo before quickly breaking into the album’s predominate sound: extremely lo-fi indie rock with the attention span of a five year old with a severe case of ADD.

A direct comparison could easily be made with the Microphones with whom they seem to share a similar aesthetic goal, though where Elvrum likes to tie together his bricolage of musical concepts together with substantial, repetitious themes, Botten’s fascination with love, fear, loss and, yes, the fear of loss meanders and never really ties together as much as it reappears without focus, thought or plan. Even Dominique (who has left the group since the completion of this record) sounds utterly lost at times, nervously repeating whatever Alex spouts in her light, almost twee harmonies—which, while sometimes noticeably out of tune, counter Botten’s pensive delivery with surprising warmth.

Dozens of likeminded ideas get thrown out, filtered into this record in a way that appears completely random; the pieces fitted together as arbitrarily as the numbered sections they’re allotted, or, for that matter, the splitting of the album into two nonlinear suites—I’m assuming kept as two fifteen minute tracks as an attempt to remain true to the original release’s vinyl-only form. Few of the ideas appear with much development or closure, using static, recordings of rain storms, or, in one case, a radio dial to connect or even take over the sections. Though it does add to the fragile and intimate nature of the songwriting, it also makes it increasingly easy to feel lost and lose interest.

The “production” (if by terming it as such I don’t confuse pressing the “record” button with being a producer, in which case I’ve been a producer for nine years now) does take a few interesting turns, though only to the degree of letting the music wander in and out of focus—at one point cutting a steady backing track to distant noise without changing the song’s direction, continuing and waiting for the backing track to return. There isn’t much variation in instrumentation, either; for the most part, acoustic guitars and a drum kit sounding like it was made completely of kitchenware make up the sections, though occasionally bass, distorted drum loops, violin and wind chimes briefly join in.

The album’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness, so while ideas relentlessly shoot forward (making the lulls as brief as the highlights), it happens in an extreme trial-and-error fashion; to counteract a striking melody there’s a backwards guitar behind awkward, barely in tune harmonizing. While the first section of “The Cooling of Lightbulbs” gleefully rips R.E.M.’s “Find the River” to create one of the album’s biggest highlights, a later section, featuring the aforementioned radio dial shuffling, muffles a fantastic melody with washes of radio frequencies far too prevalent in the mix.

Which isn’t to say that only half of A Small Glass Ghost works, but with so many of its ideas retreating or changing the instant they’re introduced, rarely slowing down to let one idea logically flow into another in turn for abrupt shifting, most of this record takes on a “blink and you’ll lose the plot” mindset that presupposes it even has a plot; honestly, even if it does, no amount of attention paid is going to reveal it to anyone else besides its creator. All flaws considered, it’s still a refreshing listen—at times even downright inspiring when they manage to turn out a succession of great ideas, letting the intensely intimate nature of the record hit home before quickly taking off in another direction, and then another and then another. Just don’t try to make sense of it as a whole.