GHOST BY GHOST

For better or worse, the evolution of and reflection on psychedelic rock music post-’60s took a lot of cues from making templates of past culture and fashions. While a generous amount of musicians manifested some heady, established ’60s concepts to propel and create something forward-thinking for modern times (see ’80s acts like the Dream Syndicate, Bunnymen, and Teardrop Explodes, for example), a lot were content to merely ape stylistic reference points and generally act as replicant Aquarian mimes armed with paisley clothes, teardrop guitars, and bowl haircuts, spouting not a whole lot more rhetoric than “take acid man/kill the pigs/peace and groovy love,” etc. It sounded cool with all the wheezy organs, tambourines, and trashed-up guitars but didn’t add a whole lot to the mix after a couple spins.

Discovering the late, great Hideo Ikeezumi’s Tokyobased PSF label via the then-miniscule distribution catalog set up by Forced Exposure (then a magazine) opened a lot of ears worldwide, your author’s included. Their aesthetic—often noise-infused—drew on the freeform aspect of ’60s psychedelia: Keiji Haino and Fushitsusha not only vibed on Blue Cheer, but on Albert Ayler-soaked free jazz and ancient Eastern musical traditions. Perhaps the biggest-hyped addition to the catalog came in 1990 with the debut, self-titled CD from Ghost, who were totally unknown and mysterious to us all. Categorized as rock, my immediate impression upon opening the mail and seeing its four members on the cover inhabiting a grassy hill in front of a temple, looking pretty fried and hippied out in cloaks and such, was ah, more kitsch/revisionism?