EP Review: Ghost Capsules - Inside

Electro quartet Ghost Capsules can trace their beginnings back to a Bomb The Bass gig in Vienna. Here it was that Tim Simenon, touring the ‘Back To Light’ album, met his support band that featured drummer Roman Lugmayr and keyboard player Georg Lichtenauer. The three hit it off, so much so that Tim relocated from Amsterdam to the Austrian capital. Here the missing piece for the Ghost Capsules jigsaw was found in singer Laura Gomez, who Tim had booked to play at one of his club nights. Proof positive that there’s no business as sociable as music.

Ghost Capsules make music for the night. Dark chocolate electro if you like, shot through with a dash of espresso, a twist of chilli even. Their beats and loops are cool and calculated, but emotion courses through each of Gomez’s lyrical statements, wreathed as they are in tales of pure fantasy. Singing of blood red shoes with killer heels, her verses are revealed under the sharply focused points of light conjured up by Ghost Capsules’ music.

Ghost Capsules - Inside EP

“When I count to three you will wake up, you won’t remember what happened”. So begins the Ghost Capsules song 'Inside', a vivid ‘reverie noir’, coloured with blood red lipstick and black satin dresses.

The remixes offer great musical flexibility. Ghost Capsules’ instrumental alias, The Third Mind, opt for a creeping sense of inertia, slightly acidic but confidently strutting forward. Makossa & Megablast bring cool, smoky house with touches of dub, developing their mix subtly to drape its tentacles round Laura Gomez and her ice cold vocal. Meanwhile Lupo uses sonic depth, the Viennese producer and DJ holding a long chord to the vocal together with animated synthesizer movement up top.

Complementing Inside are the hypnotic, probing off beats of 'Sleepless', again showing off Gomez and her crystal clear voice. Ken Hayakawa, a Japanese resident of Austria, produces a beautiful piece of nocturnal techno that unfolds under starry skies, structured to show off his classical Salzburg heritage.

Finally the Komaton duo of Sebastian Lehner and Tomá Ivanov, a big part of Austria’s burgeoning electronic music scene, take fragments of Laura’s voice to reach out like long fingers over crisply contrived beats.

Personally I think the sound of the EP is brilliant, full of character and accomplished sounds, however I would like to have seen more original tracks in lieu of the many remixes on the EP, however this is to be expected from a band who has its roots so firmly rooted in the Venetian dance scene. But all in all, the EP is incredibly promising  containing the dark beats akin with songs from Burial but still being catchy and commercial enough to make it in the ever-competitive music industry.

7/10

Links
http://www.ghostcapsules.com/
http://www.osolorecordings.com/store/ghost-capsules/inside-ep/

This is the lead single from the EP and in my opinion the best track on it:



Mason