Featureless Ghost - “See Through”

When a band has “Ghost” in their name, describing their music as haunting may seem painfully obvious, but in this case it’s unavoidable. The synthetic tones and collaged images in the video weave a pervasive digital blanket that captures and enshrouds its viewers in a mostly-purple tinted space-scape. Lyrically, the song doesn’t take on a traditional form of dedicating itself to an actual being (lover, hater, stalker, whatever) but instead opens a gate to distant dreamworld where the speaker transforms into something he doesn’t recognize. It’s as though all his familiar human elements are replaced and he emerges not a person, but a translucent body. His voice remains, deep and spooky, and eventually alternates with a woman’s voice, eerily serenading unwelcome observers with a repeated statement of awareness that leaves the listener shuttering with discomfort: I’m watching you. Watching me.  

Halfway through the song the there’s a shift that - if you’ve channeled the part of you that’s weird and dark enough to be captivated by the first three, bleak minutes - offers an exciting development. The key changes and the pace picks up, and if the song-ghost was ever a singular ghost (some white sheet or plume of smoke) it’s now something even less tangible. The haunting feeling begins to emanate from countless tiny ghost-needles, starting at your toes and creeping up your feet, ankles, legs. Each one is like a memory, a moment from your past, and together they are covering you, threatening to encapsulate you in a dangerous nostalgia. And then you have two options. You can become paralyzed by the tragic moments of long-dead history, forever stuck in a cycle of useless longing and harrowing regret. Or you can confront the problem of the ghost-needles by creating a new context for them to exist in, making yourself the grateful beneficiary of a futuristic acupuncture treatment, one that allows you translate the fragments of the past into a new kind of strength that shuttles you to unexpected realms. For a while, you’re still. The tingling pins creep past your waist, relentlessly begin to prod your ribcage. Don’t be weary now, the song-ghost says. Slowly, you begin to move.

This video was made by Claire Elise Tippins, one of the members of Featureless Ghost. Her collage, White Walls, is on LowLog.com today.