Week in Pop: Advertisement, FlygerWoods, Ghost Soda

Post Author: Sjimon Gompers

Ghost Soda

Styling & profiling with Ghost Soda’s Cameron Walden; press photo courtesy of the artist.

From the progressive pop capitol of Seattle; Ghost Soda follows up 2016’s Further Deep Down (Halfshell Records) with a premiere listen to the anticipated album Love World iii available now. Cameron Walden specializes in that sophisticated school of lover’s rock whereas instead of rehashing the tried & true traditions of classic anachronisms, Walden elevates the sensual nature of the romantic style to break on through to the psychic sectors. Love World iii imagines an expressive echelon of enjoying the company of a special loved one in candid moments of intimate exchanges & a profound respect & revelry to last for all time.
The Ghost Soda album you have been waiting for opens with “Paralyzed” that focuses the musical lens on those states of being absolutely stunned by the majestic presence of someone you absolutely adore. Cameron goes beyond the surficial skin-deep sort of affinity with “On the Surface” that trades in a carnal kind of sensuality that seeks a substance greater than what meets the eye in an audio arrangement that emulates an affection that involves the entirety of one’s being. The contemporary casanova crooning carries forward on the single “Moments” that enraptures the listener in a world of privy & precious interludes that are shared between two people in heated & passionate embraces of a clandestine type of congress.
The push for a greater understanding is heard like the best new wave jam from the 80s that you waited decades for on “Never Understand” as Walden pushes for a more generative connection. The Ghost Soda style has grown more elaborate in the past few years, where frequencies have become increasingly sharpened to share sentiments that create correlations between both the physical world & that of the paranormal. This can be witnessed on “Slime Tonight” that drips with a lysergic state of mind where Cameron creates an arrangement that melts into a viscous dissolve of transforming styles that morphs into a suite of many lusters & illustrious forms of passion. Games of phone tag are transformed into a sultry & eccentric variety show performance on “Call Me Up” that is complete with an introducing the band moment towards the end of the track. The Love World iii Ghost Soda specter opera concludes with “Taz” that features Walden setting off all the mesmerizing pyrotechnics that leaves the listener in a state of ecstasy like the sleepy awakening that occurs from an epic cycle of beautifully orchestrated omnibus of dreams.

Specters in the material realm—Ghost Soda’s Cameron Walden; press photo courtesy of the artist.

Ghost Soda’s own Cameron Walden penned the following exclusive behind-the-scenes perspectives about the creation of Love World ii:

At the beginning of 2017 after having lost another albums worth of material, I holed myself up in the room of my old house and began slowly writing and recording what was to become Love World iii. At the time I didn’t have any new material, just some ideas of new songs and memories of the ones I had lost. I would spend hours playing music and recording it all, then piecing everything together until I found something that I liked.
Bored with the songs I already knew, I didn’t want to waste my time trying to rerecord any of them. However, fragments of them did make their way into some of the new songs. I thought it was a fun practice seeing what could come from what I thought I remembered.
As impatient as I am, I sat on these songs for a bit, unsure if these were the ones I wanted to put out or not. I wanted to work on new material but was unable to. Finally I realized that in order to write new songs, I needed to be done with these first and release them. So with that being said, I’m happy that everyone can finally hear what I’ve been working on for the past year.

Ghost Soda’s Love World iii is available now via Bandcamp

Reclining & reflecting with Ghost Soda’s Cameron Walden; video still photographed by Koji Minami & Canh Nguyen.

Also don’t miss our previous world premiere for the Ghost Soda video for “Moments”, directed and edited by Koji Minami.