The Ghost is Dancing

THE GHOST IS DANCING
Battles On
Release Date: 28 April 2009 (Canada)
The Ghost is Dancing began as many bands begin, in a moldy basement during university. Kevin Corlis, Jim DeLuca, Jamie Matechuk and Odie Ouderkirk were returning home via Toronto's Spadina Ave, sweaty and exuberant after a Hidden Cameras show at the Horseshoe Tavern when they decided that they wanted to start a band. Jamie had spent the last year learning how to play Modest Mouse songs and Kevin was always banging away at his collection of keyboards and drums at home, plus Jim had been wanting his friends to play music with him since they first met in kindergarten. Gabrielle Nadeau lived upstairs and picked up an accordion, Eric Krumins eventually joined on bass, and soon they were asking everyone they knew to join. Somewhere between all their energies rested dozens and dozens of pop hooks and their first major battle was to find a way to put it all together.

The first self-titled EP was charming in its do-it-yourself-ness, and expressed the sheer joy the band felt performing and writing those songs. The EP received critical acclaim and the band drew immediate comparisons to The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene and Modest Mouse, which all made perfect sense. Those were their favourite bands. Soon after their EP release they signed with Sonic Unyon Records and began work on their first LP, The Darkest Spark. In the fall of 2006 they recorded with Dale Morningstar at Gas Station Studios and in June 2007 they released The Darkest Spark to raving reviews from NOW, Chart and Spin Magazine and followed with performances on MTV, CBC and alongside The Hidden Cameras, Rogue Wave and Man Man.

Shortly after their first national tour The Ghost is Dancing shrunk in size. The economical rigours of touring, rehearsing and living with giant student debts had taken their toll. Throughout these changes, however, song-writing had continued and their musicianship had improved. Over the next year, TGID found themselves invading late-night swimming pools in Kentucky, barely avoiding head-on collisions in Quebec, and taking off all of their clothes in the back of a record store in Charlottetown. They would tour with new songs, new members, craft a tighter, more explosion live act and finish writing their next record, literally titled Battles On with Chris Stringer (Rush, Ohbijou, Timbre Timbre, The Coast).

Battles On is a record built out of desperation and the exuberance of holding something special together. Laden with even bigger pop-hooks than before, but with a go-for-broke attitude and mindfulness towards the craft of songwriting, the record rarely lets up and delivers on the promise of a band which has come into its own.