The Ghost Is Dancing

Anyone lucky enough to have seen this eight-piece band live will understand that the kind of chemistry and energy these guys foster is rare, if not close to impossible to find elsewhere.

And while they're constantly being compared to other frenetic, heavily peopled groups like the Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene, to continue drawing those parallels is unfair and lazy. The music is characteristically indie rock/pop, but what really sets it apart is how the collective seem to weave their ideas together in a frighteningly effortless way.

Organ and Wall Of Snow find them building on superb melodies with triumphant brass, swirling organs and layered, naked vocals. Though most songwriters who try to cram a trillion ideas into four-minute songs end up with poorly thought-out train wrecks, TGID have written a mature and beautifully varied record. - NOW Magazine Toronto

It seems unnecessary to mention that the Ghost Is Dancing is yet another sprawling Canadian collective. After all, any band with a maple leaf on its passport is bound to have more than six members these days. (TGID’s lineup, for the record, is now up to nine.) But there is simply no way to talk about the music of this Toronto-based band without mentioning its ballooning size. The giddy, delirious songs on their full-length debut couldn’t be made by the average four-man band; their scope and surprising agility requires at least 18 or 20 hands on deck. “Shuttles And Planes,” for example, bobs and weaves through many different ramshackle sections that could practically be separate songs unto themselves.

The band mashes together tickled ivories reminiscent of saloon player-pianos, loose-limbed drum fills aped from early-’70s pop hits and a majestic cello-laden chamber pop unpinning, all while a loopy theremin warble haunts the background. Vocally, the song is just as schizophrenic, offering a girlishly twee backing choir, lo-fi shout-along choruses and even competing Ben Gibbard-ish sensitive-slacker vocals on the verses. The amount of different instruments, textures and pop styles that are stuffed into these four-and-a-half minutes is almost exhausting and definitely requires a band the size of the Brady Bunch. But in tying together all of these disparate parts, the nonet has actually created a dizzying surprise. Instead of a predictable verse-chorus-verse structure featuring easily mimicked chord changes, “Shuttles And Planes” is a winning mess. Just when it settles into one melody or dynamic, it then veers off at odd angles—getting quiet when it should be loud and getting sweet when it should be volatile. And just when you think you’ve mastered its jaunty, shambolic tune well enough to sing along, the song takes a hairpin curve and explodes with an orchestral crescendo or devolves into quietly percolating guitars.

But “Shuttles And Planes” is driven by that suspense. You’re never quite sure where it’s going and the not knowing is the thrill. Like a disorienting carnival ride, it is, at once, strangely familiar and familiarly strange. - REBECCA RABER - paperthinwalls

WHO

Toronto nonet who cross the best bits of Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene to make a sound that's all their own.

DISCOGRAPHY

The Ghost Is Dancing (Self-released, 2005)
The Darkest Spark Sonic Unyon, 2007)

IN A NUTSHELL

On The Darkest Spark, The Ghost Is Dancing show that it's possible to sound more mature without sounding like you've lost your sense of fun.

THE STORY

The biggest criticism levelled against The Ghost Is Dancing has always seemed to be that they sometimes let their exuberance get the better of them. Not by me, mind you -- I loved their self-titled debut EP, and I enjoy them live even more. But, at the same time, I can understand exactly where people are coming from when they say that.

The Darkest Spark, however, should go a long way towards stopping people from talking like that. Even though the band has added three new members over the last two years (to bring their total to nine), their full-length debut finds them sounding much more cohesive than they did on that first EP. While some credit undoubtedly has to go to the presence of legendary producer Dale Morningstar behind the boards, it's clear just by listening to the songs that the band has matured. It's obvious when you listen to "Organ"; the version here is much more polished than the version that appeared on the EP, and the feeling that the song was about to spiral out of control has been replaced by the kind of vibe you get from bands like Broken Social Scene or Arcade Fire -- that the group's many members are coming together as one to make a big, unified noise.

It's even more apparent, though, when you contrast that song with newer tracks, like "Shuttles And Planes" or "Greatlakescape". In both cases -- particularly the latter -- the songs build to enormous crescendos, but they do so in a very controlled way, something that probably wouldn't have been possible in the band's earlier years. The difference is most striking on "We'll Make It"; even though the song is probably the closest to what The Ghost Is Dancing were doing before, it's still chaotic in a very controlled kind of way.

With all this newfound maturity, the biggest challenge facing the band was probably learning how to grow artistically without losing the sense of fun that made them so special in the first place. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to be an enormous problem for the band, and you can hear on songs like "Wall Of Snow" and "Arrivals (Are Never Enough)" that The Ghost Is Dancing know how to balance more a more mature sound with little flourishes like pump organs and anthemic-sounding guitars.

Whether this maturity and tightness will translate into their live shows remains to be seen. If the Darkest Spark is any indication, however, The Ghost Is Dancing seem well on their way towards becoming the rarest of creatures: a mature-sounding pop band that still knows how to have fun. - www.iheartmusic.net

In a perfect world, there would be a 12-step program for lazy music critics who insist on comparing every orchestral Canadian group to The Arcade Fire. But screw you; I can quit any time I want! Besides, Toronto six-piece The Ghost is Dancing actually forges a similarly sweaty evangelical musical landscape. The group's debut EP rattles with criss-crossing layers of shrill, impassioned vocals and oddball collages featuring thumping drums, frenetic guitars and tasteful touches of violin, accordion, keyboard and recorder. Oh and there's one more similarity worth mentioning: The Ghost Is Dancing are an intense, invigoratingly visceral musical experience. - Eye Weekly