There are many fantastic musicians out there making their own very interesting music. The freedom to only have to answer to yourself creates the ability to create sounds that are perfect within your mind without the pressures of having to write music that caters to others. But what if you find a like mind that creates music that meshes perfectly with yours? This seems to be the case with our latest find Ghost & Door Party.
The duo consists of Jessamyn Luong and Charles Klamut. It is quite an odd pairing. She’s a college English professor and he is a priest. After a chance meeting in a school gymnasium back in 2010, the Peoria-based singer-songwriter duo exchanged some of their works in progress. They found similar themes in their music and their stylistic themes seemed to mesh together well. The collaboration started and grew into a full-fledged team that is Ghost And Door Party. I think they describe their sound best as existential alt-folk. Some indie rock comparisons could be made to groups such as The Civil Wars and Over The Rhine.
This past summer the duo released their self-titled debut album Ghost & Door Party. The record is a full 14 songs of experience-driven songwriting that wrestles with the contradictions of existence. Deep thoughts but beautifully put into song. The opener ‘Why Ask Why’ is a guitar driven melodic song that stays pretty even as it begins with the lyrics “why ask why, it came out this way, an accident of DNA”. You know right away that you are in for some deep thinking music. There is the spooky and haunting ‘Silence’, a track of atmospheric sounds and harp that could relax even the busiest mind and put the listener in the right frame of mind to accept the rest of this quality album. On ‘Tiny Stone Castles’ Jessamyn really shows off the beauty of her voice over gentle guitar strumming and a pretty piano piece for the first minute of the track before Charles comes in and shows how these two different styles can combine to great something even bigger than the sum of its parts. The lyrics throughout all of the songs are well written and paint a thoughtful picture. The album closes with ‘Everything Good’; a perfect mellow come down to keep you in the right mental state as the music comes to an end.
Bottom Line: Ghost & Door Party have shown that beauty can be made when two separate musical minds come together to form one complete musical masterpiece.
Go sample it for yourself at: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ghostanddoorparty