Ephemera Blues by Golden Death Music

MySpace ‘adds’ by bands can be enough to send a cold Cthulhu-like shudder down my spine at times. With foul tags like: ‘the next Arctic Monkeys‘ or ‘a Pink Lloyd for a Cold Play generation,‘ they are rarely good or even average, seem to take no notice of your stated interests, and are usually the worst derivative wannabe corporate cock-munching whores of Satan, but sometimes… just sometimes something, a glint of gold surfaces out of the mire.

Golden Death Music does more than glint, his music truly shines like the sun! I’m more than impressed, his latest homemade album Ephemera Blues is by far the best guitar-orientated music that I have heard since Elliot Smith’s Either/Or (RIP), although it sounds nothing like him really, so ignore all that. Instead I’ll take the radical step of saying what Ephemera Blues does sound like. In short, it sounds much like the artist’s name itself: it is golden death music. It is like death, but not horror show death or anything ghastly like death metal death, but something more ancient, more spiritual, more intangible – not something to be afraid of, but something to embrace, something blissful: an opium dream – something golden.

Okay, I’ll stop waxing lyrical and get down to it, because that tells you nothing other than I’m a big fool. Ephemera Blues opens with ‘Endless Dream:’ a rhythmic upbeat slice of psychedelic pop, like Josh Rouse’s album 1972 on good drugs. ‘Waking Nightmare’ follows it, perhaps the most complex song on the album and the hardest one to describe, but I’ll try anyway: multiple-layers, soft dreamy vocals, with a repetitive instrumental pulse, a nifty middle-eighth riff straight out of a cold war spy film – like the Animal Collective mixed with Merz and Pink Floyd or something else all together. While ‘Together’ is bitter-sweet and gentle, yet rich and beautifully textured, reminding me of the Doves or an old Sarah Records band called The Sweetest Ache (there is one for the thirty-something indie kids), they were like a melancholy, sadder, Lennon-esque Stone Roses if you do not know. ‘Morning Sun, Morning Song’ is pure bliss: deeply dreamy, beautiful drone with a slightly old-skool goth guitar riff if I’m not mistaken.

The album continues with the catchy and all too brief ‘Self Help,’ which has touches of the Chameleons and The Cure – it really is a great tune! The heavily strummed ‘Ephemera Blues’ follows, which, while still excellent, is probably the least striking song on here (maybe it will be a grower?). But none of that matters because the best two songs are yet to come. ‘True Beauty is Emptiness’ with its emotive opening lead riff reminiscent of Neil Young’s early electric stuff, which bleeds into breathy vocals and builds into a intricate and beguiling sequence of layered instruments and vocal tracks, with a beautifully evocative middle-eighth. The album finishes with sublime ‘Into the Ocean’ which fades from Animal Collective-style vocal weirdness into something reminiscent of post-Barrett Pink Floyd, without falling into the trap of their muso-wanky-pankiness.

Although I realize I’ve made it all sound incredibly pretentious and I’ve used the word dreamy about 50 times, this really isn’t the case – well, okay it is dreamy, but Golden Death Music is never self-indulgent and is highly accessible. Indeed the songs are surprisingly short in most cases. What is most impressive is for the first time in ages I have the sense of listening to an actual album rather than just a bunch of songs. Thats not to say that they are samey, not by any means, but there is a distinct sense of unity: an undercurrent of warmth running through each song.

On top of that each album comes in its own individual hand painted covers by Lido. Mine is a deep orange covered in unworldly doodles: its as unique as the music and perfectly complimentary too. I’ll post a pic of mine up hear soon*.

Anyway, ignore my rambling and go to Golden Death Musics MySpace profile and listen for yourself. Also if you ask him nicely he will also send you some mp3s from an earlier release, which are equally great.

*EDIT: picture of my cover below.