Ghost
Label: Morr Music
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Ghost
Ben Cooper won some hearts last year in a lo-fi pop project called Electric President. The self-titled no-frills debut was an agreeable listen, dressed in inoffensive laptop-sourced beats and Cooper’s slow, winding vocal. As Radical Face, Cooper’s compositions have flourished into cheerful portraits, sometimes bookended by roomy atmospherics or creaks in the framework of an old house. Cooper’s songs ‘ now more folky and orchestral, sounding assembled from an older songbook ‘ often include the album’s title in their deeply personal verses; Ghost is hardly without a mention of its sole subject. ‘Hauntedâ?� isn’t particularly disturbing, but its piano melody is ever trailing off, while programmed beats simmer under Cooper’s lovely metaphors (‘You wear the night like it’s your coatâ?�). Following the sound of footsteps against a worn staircase, ‘Winter Is Comingâ?� rides multiple vocal harmonies and urgent floor-tom beats before it gushes in lively full-band-type crescendos, cymbals and all. Ben Cooper is still doing things in his own lo-fi, home-studio way, but these are ghosts he’s talking about; they don’t know any limits.
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2007.