Unhinged Review: Cecile McLorin Salvant’s “Ghost Song”

In the two years since March 2020, I have seen many a snide tweet making fun of “pandemic art;” that phenomenon of works using direct allegory to explore themes such as isolation and societal collapse, seemingly in hopes that writing works about current events instantly equals artistic relevance. Indeed, shortly after the pandemic had reached the University of Calgary, I cringed in horror during the online performance of a program of new works about “togetherness in difficult times.” Due to this experience and others like it, I have become intensely wary of this kind of one-to-one musical representation of nonmusical ideas, and have oppositely become attracted to works of art which explore current events in more subtle ways by probing into topics which are emotionally or tangentially relevant. There are a few pieces or albums which have scratched this particular itch for me: Fiona Apple’s vital and essential Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Sarah Hennies’ The Reinvention of Romance, Dorothy Chang’s latest shudder-inducing orchestral work Precipice, and, most recently, Ghost Song, a skittish melange of covers and originals delving into love and loss and death and undeath and madness by three-time Grammy-winning singer and self-professed “eclectic curator” Cecile McLorin Salvant.

I initially bought Ghost Song for its cover of “Wuthering Heights” (Thanks, IB English) but it has rapidly earned a place among my top albums of the past two years. The opening track shifts from an Irish folk-song-style to “Wuthering Heights,” with ethereal pads and ground bass framing Salvant’s voice in a lovingly unfinished rendering of Kat Bush’s classic song; Salvant is being haunted by Cathy’s ghost here, and thus leaves the song unresolved. In “Until,” Salvant is a shapeshifter, forming a world with each syllable as the rhythm section soars across a 3/4 groove. “I Lost My Mind,” the album’s turning point according to the liner notes, is a haunted circus; the shrieks of lost spirits are propelled by a crescendoing odd-time organ ostinato and a repeated refrain of “I lost my mind/can you help me find my mind.” This track has managed to encapsulate the feeling of malaise in bed at night after a day trapped indoors like nothing else I’ve witnessed. In “The World Is Mean” Salvant’s voice shapeshifts again, becoming delightfully acrid and biting along with the song’s profession that “The world is mean and man uncouth.” The final track, “Unquiet Spirits,” completes the circle, returning to Irish folk-singing; however, this time it is Salvant doing the haunting.

This album gets into your bones. No song is superfluous, no word or instrumental flourish without deep significance. The music’s texture ranges from giddy to groovy to somber depending on the track, and sometimes shifts within songs. Some tracks blaze through numerous emotional states very rapidly where other, typically slower tracks rest in one state of being: this creates a rhythm between and among sections and tracks which feels amazing. Certain songs are lyrically through-composed with very little repetition, where others sit on a phrase or refrain for their entirety, often with looping harmonies, in an addicting kind of reiteration which remains fresh after multiple listens. Indeed, this meditative litany grants the listener time to pause and reflect, not just on the music at hand, but on what it means to them, spiritually reflecting the silence and solitude and horror of our present time, only for the music to turn around with a jolt and get you dancing with a twinkle in its eye.

Every part is paced to perfection: the album is truly a circle and a nested structure all at once, with breakneck pieces like “Optimistic Voices” and “The World is Mean” respectively giving way to or emerging out of tranquil love-ballads “Until” and “Moon Song” before the whole thing loops back to the beginning. This is one of the few albums I would purposefully listen through multiple times on repeat; every listen offers something new, and the album’s thematic tightness and compelling sound prevents one’s mind from going off-track. In essence, Ghost Song is a music of transitions, with the vast stylistic differences between sections and tracks informing the listening experience as much as the music itself. Diverse in its content but precise in its aims, Salvant has formed a spectral sonic ecosystem to which I hope to travel many times.

My score: 5/5