Search - Kevin Moore :: Ghost Book

Kevin Moore's soundtrack of Ghost Book (Hayalet Kitap)

Murat Batmaz | Istanbul, Turkey | 07/17/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a very interesting story indeed. A guy from Turkey starts writing this book called "Hayalet Kitap" (meaning Ghost Book) way back in 1999 or something. While writing, he listens to a lot of Kevin Moore-era Dream Theater and even uses an excerpt from "Space Dye-Vest" as a prologue to his story. The more he listens to Moore's music, the deeper he goes with his writing and eventually his book gets published and gets quite of an attention. Years later, he is asked to write the script of a horror movie called OKUL (meaning School) and adapt his story of Ghost Book to it. As he and the directors of the movie think of a fitting soundtrack for their flick, Kevin Moore relocates to Istanbul, Turkey, in order to write and record his third album for his Chroma Key project. All of a sudden, Dogu Yucel, the writer, and Moore meet to discuss the possibilities of working together and upon discovering that his music was a great inspiration for the book, Moore agrees to postpone the Chroma Key record, and starts work on Ghost Book, his first ever completely solo effort to date.Now I haven't read the book, nor have I seen the movie. Being a big Dream Theater and Chroma Key fan, I figured I'd just wait till this soundtrack sees the light of day. So I've picked it up recently and have to strongly point out that this sounds absolutely NOTHING like Kevin Moore's previous musical endeavours. Although the label claims this would "have direct appeal to fans of [Dream Theater, OSI, Chroma Key]", Ghost Book is a completely different entity. Do not pick it up if you expect to hear anything similar to the aforementioned bands musically. Obviously this is just a marketing ploy. On the other hand don't hesitate to check it out if you're a fan of Moore's minimalist approach to songwriting with various experimental soundscapes in his songcraft. Also be sure to keep in mind that this is not a studio album, it's just a soundtrack to a teenslasher movie. Therefore it displays ultra ambient textures writing-wise. That said, Ghost Book is a very key step in the sound of Kevin Moore's music giving him the opportunity for a more powerful artistic expression. The album delves into completely unexplored ground and constantly experiments with various textures. It contains lots of primitive instruments possibly stemming from Moore's adventurous stay in Costa Rica before he moved to Turkey. The drum-circle recording that runs through some of the compositions have a recurring theme and are present in the background of the tunes. This being a soundtrack album, most of the 'songs' clock in at less than 3 minutes and Moore provides vocals on only one track, namely "Sad Sad Movie", which is also the longest track on the CD. There's also a female singer on this traditional Turkish song "Farfara" which is perhaps the most wicked offering of the album viciously moving from west to east trying to find a balance in between. I am particularly fond of "Overheard" which is an excellent testament to Moore's artistic creativity and perhaps the most song-oriented track on this disc. "Piano Theme", "Cowbloke" and both "Roof Access" tracks are also highlights of this work. Sonically most of the songs are sparse and spacy with delicate sound effects and layers of moody textures. Moore even plays the guitar in "Cowbloke" although lots of his fans may believe it's all keyboard-generated stuff. The album bleeds atmosphere in a dark, creepy and evocative landscape. There's a unique underlying complexity to the compositions, yet they are still very easy to listen to because of their minimalist structure.Despite its strong points that I have just mentioned, this is one of those albums that may take a while to get used to. Not because of its complexity, but because it's an album that moves very slowly. Almost the entire disc is instrumental save for the spoken words taken from the movie which sound like they're coming through a muffled microphone at times so even some die-hard Chroma Key fans may find it a tad difficult to get used to. I own the Turkish edition of the CD and it contains three bonus tracks with two other Turkish musicians. One of them is a quite popular singer but I can't say I care for his style. The other two tracks, however, are more interesting and have more momentum. They're more straightforward rock tunes but I can't say they go too well with the rest of the tracks so I recommend getting the one on Amazon instead. This one also has a better cover art and pics taken by Kevin himself in the booklet."