The solo debut from Evan John Uschenko under his Ghost Woman moniker is raw in all the best ways. Listening to this album, you may feel like you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and into some lost piece of 1960s psychedelia.
As Ghost Woman, Uschenko’s ethereal world is a swirling vortex of jangly guitars, light percussion, and melancholy lyrics. Album opener “All The Time” kicks things off quiet and sparse, with delicate guitar picking, light percussion, and wistful vocals. By the end of the song, you’ve been lulled into a dreamy haze that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the album, which dwells somewhere in the territory between folk and psych rock.
Layers of reverb and delay are drenched throughout tracks like “Do You” and “Behind Your Eyes,” both of which feature Uschenko’s vocals buried beneath. His voice may not be immediately apparent, but it doesn’t need to be; his somber tone is clear in every syllable he delivers, as well as in his choice of lyrics.
Although it evokes a vintage, late-night listening experience, Ghost Woman is not an album to be taken lightly: it’s an experience to be listened to on repeat. Uschenko’s music feels like it’ll drift into your ears and dissipate through your memories, seeping into your subconscious. The song structures may sound somewhat simple, but the sleepy tone of his voice and the low fidelity quality of his recordings give his music a warm feeling that lingers long after you take the needle off the record.
Playing his rippling psych-pop raw and loose, Uschenko evokes Hendrix, Beefheart, Lennon and even The Kinks. Which is not to say he sounds like any of them per se; he definitely doesn’t — but there’s some vibe there you can trace back if you look closely enough.
If you love fuzz pedals and raw, psych-rock tones that filter through gauze as if it were a cracked prism, Ghost Woman is for you.
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