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STEREO EMBERS EXCLUSIVE ALBUM PREMIERE w/Track-By-Track from the band – “Recycled Hearts” EP, Released Today on Ghost Fig Records

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From first breath to final step, life is an exploration. It is a journey of enlivening light and celebration aligned to the discomfort of shadows and emotional turbulence where at any given moment unpredictability and surprise makes for close companions. That adventure equally applies to and is echoed in the creative realm of electronic psych duo forceghost.

Augusta, GA based forceghost is the creation of Eric Kinlaw (vocals/guitar/bass/sound design) and Marcus Barfield (production/sound design), a pair with many years of musical evolution and collaboration together that their latest project embraces within its own boundaries pushing explorations. The band initially emerged in “a slightly different form” in 2019 but soon found itself in the hold and restrictions of the Covid pandemic. This absence and parting allowed individual musical and emotional explorations to subsequently merge within the band’s return to physical freedom to fuel what could be described as a new beginning for forceghost.

Early 2024, the band unveiled their debut EP, ‘unknowing the known’ which in turn revealed the ethereal kaleidoscope of their electronic seeded sound. Eric and Marcus weave panoramas of emotional and electronic synthesis as the former’s intimate lyrical contemplations address personal themes of loss, conflict, and sadness. Musically, a host of genres and flavours are drawn into their variegated and electronically seeded sound and by the song they expose the new quest and imagination in their creativity and enterprise centred by Eric’s warm yet sorrowful tones.

As the band’s acclaimed first release showed, there is also an uplifting breath and reassuring radiance within forceghost’s melancholic soundscapes to confirm that “that it is okay to completely fall apart and that it is okay to completely start over”, suggestiveness shared with velvety guitars, soaring synths, and hauntingly beautiful vocals.

That instinctive evolution and continuing experimentation again provides an inescapably involving invitation within the new forceghost EP, ‘recycled hearts’. The four-track release is the pair’s boldest and most creatively prismatic offering yet while again reaching into the shadows of the heart and emotional fatality. Even so, it bears the distinctive individuality and presence of forceghost like a luminous shroud around the darker realms within, it all making for their most intimately revealing, emotionally intensive and creatively emboldened offering so far. [text: Mike Turner]

TRACK BY TRACK
1. oh no you didn’t

We explored a variety of rhythms and vibes on this one. Like a dub trap feel mixed with electro shoegaze. This one started out with just the verse and then the chorus was added later that really elevates things. A wall of sound with a choppy beat that touches into an industrial style. The “worm” motif was a simple melody that accidentally came about but really completes the tune.

2. scientific!

This one really packs in a lot of subtle elements that bubble and burst in unexpected ways. All sorts of rhythmic explosions keep pushing you further and further into it. The melodic versus keeps evolving like a patchwork layering on top of the one before it. Guitar rips accelerate the forward momentum while the cascading video game sounds take you deeper and deeper into space.

3. microplastics 

Lush electronic waves keep you floating forever in a sea of micro plastics. This one felt so epic to complete. It really envelopes everything we have created so far. Crossing counter melodic lines with the synthy flute, reverse-like pulsing drops, orchestral strings, and clanking beats might be what the sound of gravity pulling on the ocean is like. 4. this is the only way

4. this is the only way 

Our weird version of dub that interplays with a kind of “TV on the Radio” guitar texture. All the various rhythmic melodies wrap together and push into chaotic and dreamy choruses. Gated fuzz guitar transforms into sparkly rave crescendos. Lyrically, it’s about when I decided to close my business of 20 years and how I felt after. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to let that go. But all for the better.