TV Ghost on Kind Turkey Records

I still listen to that Atomic Rain single from 2008, which is an eternity when it comes to seven inches. Five years ago, Blank Dogs was putting out impossible to get singles records left and right and Captured Tracks wasn't even a label yet for god sakes. TV Ghost's discography now reads like a who's who of underground labels, Die Stasi, Columbus Discount, Sweet Rot and In The Red. I don't know what kind of connection Bobby over at Kind Turkey has with these guys but they agreed to release the first recorded material from TV Ghost way back in 2007 on his label. The discog description for it is the best:

The earliest known recordings of TV Ghost. Recorded by the band sometime in early 2007 in Lafayette, Indiana onto 4-track cassette monaurally. The cassette was then dropped into a puddle on accident, after which it was soundsourced for this 7".

A perfect document of the era - some might say the very height of blown out, buried, overdriven, melted input levels and this single is the extreme of all examples. You can say the most important thing about any release is the year it was recorded and this is no exception. A prime early example to be studied.

With a blast of that heavy messed up fuzz "Amputee" pounds in just like that first single but with an epic dirge quality. This has even been pushed passed Times New Viking's upper limits of overloaded frequencies (thanks to that missing ingredient...a puddle). They get into a high/low teetering mess that is extremely dark thanks to this organ creeping through haunted house blasts and Tim on vocals has always been working in that basement laboratory space tinkering with bubbling beakers even in the very early days. It's a sonic end game with no where to go from here, the last straw has been chosen, needles in the red have been broken. This is as loaded as you can be and still sift some kind of melody out of this sludge. A drunken mess of extreme's, a melody rising up and down, back and forth in a crazy huddled duality. Wailing vocals off in the background of this mix ask how they got to this place and that imagery of the supernatural coming out of that static in the TV set. This track has been lurking between UHF channels for the last five years.

If there was a dark force in the teetering blasted wrath of the A-Side, "The Mold" is some kind of ancient jackhammer, only ending up psych because everything is so unclear. The rhythm and tune are pushed up against a wall and knocked to the floor. It's a blur of emotion and sound, if there was a case for modern psych, this sort of thing is it. It's attempt to mess with your senses literally with this blown out fuzz could definitely do the trick, you'll be left cleaning your ears. TV Ghost began out of that mess they specifically bring to the table. It's mysterious and creepy because they leave so much up to the imagination, the instrumentation is unclear, you struggle to pick out a single phrase or lyric because these ghosts don't even exist on the same plane of existence as we do. Luckily this recording bridged the dimensional gap but not without losing some fidelity mind you.

On Kind Turkey Records, Dark purple vinyl pressing is sold out, but recently repressed on Green.

TV Ghost on Sweet Rot Records

I think I first met TV Ghost back in 2007 after talking about their single on Die Stasi, and I really wonder if it was even the same band? These guys are dedicated, honing and refining this creepy sound for years to end up in this disturbing unique place. But then again TV Ghost has a facebook page now...or should I say Television Ghost...maybe that explains it.

A-Side's "Phantasm" sounds like these guys have taken on a full psych attack strategy but maybe that's thanks to these organ squeezes, the vocals are just as disturbed as I remember. A dirty gutteral bassline under haunted house organ grinds. Split vocals, distorted across both speakers following that eerie organ melody. The springy reverb when finally released is an insane distant thunder thwack from the tesla coil in the next state over. I think from some of the previous reviews I read I was expecting this to be way more polished but they're still carrying this raw, unpolished edge. It's all done on a real passionate scale, the gunshot clicks from ungrounded cables are like sparks, electricity connecting that circuit, heavy and smacking. Still sounding like a Deadbolt neighbor, from down in the lab. They are plenty frightening, the distortions going way beyond just that guitar noise, but disembodied voices from the next room. Things get almost free jazz sounding with all of the layers of haunted organs and amplified strings and then it all stops suddenly. The ghosts of the tv have blown a fuse.

B-Side's "Panic Area" - now that I'm hearing this ensemble more clearly, you get a sense for the true weirdness of these tracks. The bounced back and forth vocals and their deadpan monotone inbetween manic bursts of chorus the whole thing falls apart, they're getting closer to the Nothing People than the wave of no-fi glitched out layered whatever-gaze direction a lot of other bands continue to explore. The vision is a lot more clear musically and the end result is maybe a little more disturbing now that you can hear every note. Like a halloween ride, a screamy blues laughing ghost ride ...TO HELL!

Creep me out.
In a sleeve/inner sleeve textured cardstock, on black vinyl. Sweet Rot. (Ordering info on their myspace page...one of the last holdouts.

Columbus Discount records singles club!

It's official....it's the year of the seven inch, first there was the NNF singles club for nu noise, then Sup Pop brings back their singles club, now Columbus Discount is offering a great singles club with some singles I can't wait to hear....TV Ghost, El Jesus de magico, pink reason, psychedelic horseshit....amazing. Limited to an edition of only 250, this will sell out fast
Just got this email announcement where they promised to get these out on time and that they will be working closely with the pressing plant and artists to get them pressed in time and by the people they say are on board.
Just the fact that they brought up every other dissapointing experience I've had in the past makes me believe they've been in that situation themselves and I'm really looking forward to hearing these. Got to clear a spot on the shelves for another singles club. I wonder how this is going to effect any full length things they had planned. Someone is busting ass over there, and I hope these 7"'s aren't pushing out larger bodies of work....I know how could I even think that. I just can't imagine the ammount of DIY work going on at CDR.
It's taking me back to the old BMG nightmare club, the name, the subscription....it was the only way for someone in the middle of nowhere before the internet as we know it to get anything even remotely 'alternative'....so sad. What's it like today for every kid around the world, to be able to sit at a computer and take in decades of music in an afternoon.

It's 12 records for $5 each plus shipping, so the club starts at $60, totally reasonable, and then pick your shipping option, either get each one individually or they'll ship bi-monthy, quarterly etc. They thought of every combonation of shipping and payment plan, this has all the earmarks of being extra managed and super legit. Count me in.

Columbus Discount Records is proud to announce CDR-SC-Y1! (Columbus Discount Records Singles Club Year One!). We've heard that some other grunge label is doing one of these things, but we been working real hard planning this for a long time now, so we ain't gonna let that stop us. We're mighty proud of it, and think you'll probably like it, too.

Without further ado, here's the roster for CDR-SC-Y1!, in no particular order:

>Cheater Slicks
>El Jesus De Magico
>Little Claw
>The Harrisburg Players (A comp of archival recordings from Harrisburg, OH featuring Tommy Jay & co.!)
>TV Ghost
>Guinea Worms
>Pink Reason
>Dan Melchior und das Menace
>Sandwitch (featuring Ron House of TJSA, Great Plains, Ego Summit infamy!)
>Psychedelic Horseshit
>The Unholy 2
>Mike Rep

tv ghost - atomic rain

TV Ghosts seems to exist in the place between Times New Viking and Deadbolt, the recording itself has that otherworldly fuzzy, distant, no-fi sound. Is this becoming like a preset on boards or for protools? I mean it's easy to not worry about capturing every instrument individually in an isolated room, microphone angles, and amp emulators, but it's just as specific of a choice these days to sound like this, almost as much work...so to say, 'oh they just stuck a tape player in the corner of their practice space' might not be true. I just wonder how much that's really happening and how much is a highly crafted niche.
I want to believe, and I do, that TV Ghosts is recording with whatever's on hand, making the hiss and muffled treble another sound to be manipulated, a happy accident. It's working for them, and I want to hear these projects sweating away in basements and on the fringes of everything. They sound like they're influenced by the hot rod surf sound, heavy on the reverb and instead of zombie's it's ghosts, and from Indiana, so there's no pigeonholing them. I guess I'm questioning if it's me finding this and writing about it, or it's just popping up everywhere. This has to be some kind of movement at this point.
I can't wait to see Jay Retard tonight and hopefully no one fucks with his shit.


"How many records just feel mysterious these days? The debut Pink Reason 7" had it, the Los Llamarada LP has it in spades, certainly the Blank Dogs can pull it off whenever "they" choose, but most records will sit before your jaded eyes and ears and perform exactly the dance they appear to advertise: powerpop, electro-beep, folkie stems n seeds, etc. This here TV Ghost 7" is more in line with the aforementioned bands as a new X Factor on the micro-popular music scene, a band whose sound is difficult to categorize and resists easy comparison. No, they dont sound like the Blank Dogs, they are working a vein that drives a path back thru indie rock all the way to early No Wave and threads forward to us thru the LAFMS archives with a pitstop in Port Chalmers for a spot of homebake. It helps that the songs on this record feel like excerpts from a larger whole, and that the vinyl tends to make your needle act like its haunted by St. Vitus in the middle of one side. Musico Mysterioso. Please kids, no limited-to-50 cassette follow-up to this, get this shit out to the "masses"… "-RW, Z-Gun.

From fusetron

or direct from Die Stasi