Review
Genre and Mood
Console sings A Homeless Ghost through the voice of Miriam Osterrieder, on an album that laut.de called ambient with song structures and that Discogs files under electro and ambient. The feelings on this page, dreamy and intimate, are our reading of a track the same review praised for satisfying blissful pop needs while keeping an unobtrusiveness all its own.
Song Summary
A Homeless Ghost is the second of eleven tracks on Herself, which Martin Gretschmann released as Console on the label Disko B at the end of 2010; it runs five minutes 41 seconds. The record was produced and mixed at Paul’s Pop Store in Weilheim. laut.de’s Michael Schuh wrote that Gretschmann made it deliberately without his bandmates and brought only Osterrieder into the studio, and that this song is her first big appearance; the release credits still list the live band as performers, and the digital listing names five composers and Gretschmann as lyricist.
Musical Breakdown
No source walks through this track part by part, so this breakdown stays with the two details the reviews name.
Intro
Listen for what comes first, the textures or the beat, and how long the track waits before the voice.
Main Section
The heart of the song is the pairing laut.de singled out: the only straight bass drum on Herself under Osterrieder’s voice, which Groove heard across the album as held between singing and speech.
Outro
How the track ends is not described anywhere. Notice whether the kick or the voice leaves last.
Concepts in Focus
A four-on-the-floor kick, one bass drum on every beat, is so common in dance music that it rarely makes news. On Herself it does: laut.de noticed that this is the one song with a straight bass drum, and credited it with a lonely balancing act between blissful pop and an unobtrusiveness of its own. One steady pulse is enough to change how a whole track feels.
That pulse also made the song useful to DJs. In 2012 Disko B released Herself Remixes, with Wareika’s Human Harmonizer remix of A Homeless Ghost, and Herself Remixes II opened with Daniel Bortz’s eight-minute version. The music video of 2011, directed by Volker Heckel, is a third shape: under four minutes long.
Artistic Context
Console is the electronic project of Martin Gretschmann, long the programmer of The Notwist, who also records as Acid Pauli, heard in Bonaparte, Acid Pauli – Not Today. laut.de heard Herself’s sound as a link between his albums Reset The Preset and Mono. Among the producers of Wareika’s remix Discogs credits Florian Schirmacher, one half of Federleicht in Federleicht – Herr B.
Impact and Reception
Groove’s Maximilian Linz heard an album that loves both the anonymity of techno technology and the poetic ideals of indie pop, more sketch than masterpiece. A Homeless Ghost was the song that got a video and two remixes. Give it five quiet minutes.
