I’ve been trying to get Ambrosia Bardos on a volume of Ball of Wax for a while, and at last the stars have aligned! For this volume, Ambrosia has chosen to share an excerpt from their work on the soundtrack for Ghosttown, glitch artist jonCate’s “queering of The Western, an in progress deconstruction of the history of cinema.” As with Darryl Blood’s scoring work that appeared earlier on this volume, this piece is rich with detail, and whether you’ve seen the film in question or not, the mind races to create narratives for it all. We start with sparse, wet noises, gradually gaining in frequency as layers of sound are added. Then a crashing sound (waves? rocks?) is added, its slow delay bringing rhythm to the piece. The human voice, deeply processed and manipulated, makes an appearance, hints at a melody, all with a sense of foreboding. Are we walking our horse down an almost-dry creek, warily eyeing the sagebrush, the strange birds crying in the trees? The sound grows in intensity and about halfway through, foreboding turns to outright menace. Something awful is happening, but we can’t turn our eyes (or ears) away. After a while we drop off a cliff, it all breaks down to one sustained note. A body lies motionless in the desert, clothing licked by the wind. One last sung note rings out plaintively, and we fade to black.
Or, you know, probably not, but that’s what I hear. Regardless of imagery, this is a gorgeous composition by an uncompromising artist more than worthy of your attention.