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2011 Twilight Concert Series: Ghostland Observatory/Phantogram

Presented by Salt Lake City Arts Council at Pioneer Park

August 18, 2011

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GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY

Ghostland Observatory’s approach to music–sonically, aesthetically and conceptually–is a melding of the different personalities of its two members, Thomas Ross Turner and Aaron Behrens. Whereas Turner, the producer/drummer/keyboardist of the duo, finds solace in minimal, bleak cable-patch squawks and analog-disco-thump, Behrens’ interests lie more along the lines of ‘psychedelia,’ rock and various country and blues artists. The result is a shimmering, pulsing pop music that is at once kinetically alive with Behrens’ striking vocals and driving guitar work and anchored firmly by Turner’s percussive beats and Moog-generated melodies and hooks. Behrens and Turner formed Ghostland Observatory in Austin in 2003 and haven’t looked back since. With their newest album, Codename: Rondo, Ghostland Observatory has taken a step in a new direction, both creatively and technically maintaining the essential elements of their unmistakable sound: “sweaty, raw-boned, and direct from the future.”
 

PHANTOGRAM

Phantogram’s music sounds as though it is urban-based, despite the fact that the band calls the town of Saratoga Springs, NY home. Electronic loops, hip-hop beats, shoegaze, soul, pop—each finds its way into their music. Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, the duo that make up Phantogram grew up in the nearby town of Greenwich and have flourished in Saratoga. They drive almost every day to a barn they call Harmony Lodge to write and record. Serving as their homemade studio/practice space/think-tank/bat-cave, the barn is equipped with various samplers, tapes, records, synths, drums, and both percussive and stringed instruments. It’s here that Phantogram allows their natural surroundings and metropolitan influences to meld together and create the beautiful, beat-driven dreamlike pop songs that appear on their 2010 release, Eyelid Movies.