Originally released by Drag City in 1999 (can you believe it’s been thirteen years!? Happy Bar Mitzvah! Oh wait, they’re Japanese…). Free Tibet…was issued as a companion album along with Snuffbox Immanence, a delightful little experimental rock record you would do well to hunt down and hear for yourself. This companion record is much less well known than the record with which it was released. So…
“Free Tibet is definitely much more the socially forceful flipside to that lovely album. The same core five-person lineup records here, but as photos and an impassioned essay from the liaison office of the Dalai Lama demonstrate, the goal is what’s stated right in the title. Given Batoh’s open inspiration, spiritually and musically, from that region, recording what amounts to both a celebration and call to action makes perfect sense. Certainly, Ghost aren’t interested in simply recording a tribute to Tibetan music — while the opening track “We Insist” starts with various Tibetan wind instruments, the focus is on Batoh, who speaks rather than sings, his words distorted heavily, the effect almost that of a government official dictating one’s fate. The same sense of beautiful serenity that so often pervades Ghost’s work is more than clear here — all it takes is a listen to the grand “Way of Shelkar” to show that, its blend of Batoh, guitars, keyboards, and other instruments achieving a wondrous calm. Other songs like “Lhasa Lhasa” and “Change the World” deliver the key message with the same sweet grace. The album climaxes with the mind-blowing title track, the longest thing the group has ever done at over half-an-hour long. Whether it was carefully planned or a jam session, it’s a stunner, ranging from acoustic gentility to percussion craziness to nuclear-strength electric roars, sometimes switching from one section to another on a dime. There’s one interesting link to Snuffbox in terms of music — as on that album, Ghost here salute a musical forebear, in this case Tom Rapp. His Pearls Before Swine track “Images of April” gets a stripped-down, softly whispered cover, both a worthy tribute to the original and a showcase for Batoh’s own considerable work.” – AllMusic.com
Ghost
Turn On, Tune In, Free Tibet
(Drag City, 1999)
MediaFire DL Link
01. We Insist
02. Comin’ Home
03. Way To Shelkar
04. Images Of April
05. Lhasalhasa
06. Remember
07. Change The World
08. Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet
