Ghosts on TV 🇫🇮 - ‘CCTV’ (single)

Regular readers will know that we ‘discovered’ a new genre a couple of weeks ago: Pinegaze - a close musical relative of shoegaze, specifically reserved for Nordic musicians who play shimmering guitars while staring mournfully into pine forests. It’s pretty popular up there to be honest and judging by historic promo shots, Ghosts on TV may well have been involved in the movement themselves, but sonically they do remain firmly rooted in post-rock / shoegaze territory. And recent photos, along with new track ‘CCTV’, suggest they’ve headed into the city, tackling societal problems head on.

Their music is very familiar to us here. We’ve covered them for years, and their 2020 album, ‘I Am Not Dead, I Am 55 Today’  was not only our Album of the Year but remains one of my favourite releases of all time.

‘CCTV’ is languid and melodic, built around a deceptively simple glockenspiel theme that gradually, and inevitably, expands in that classic post-rock way… building… stretching… quietly gathering emotional mass whilst maintaining that slow waltz of a theme. Their style has evolved, but they still deliver those extended, sweeping compositions that draw you completely into their world.

Anyway, on the new track the band explain:

“‘CCTV’ was a product of listening to a lot of Current 93 and watching series like Adolescence as well as documentaries on the manosphere. The track indulges a feeling of anxiety and sadness on how indifferent, hostile and divided people seem to be nowadays; socially, politically and philosophically. While the music maybe creates a hopeful and comforting energy, the lyrics are bleak and sardonic to say the least. This counterpoint aspires to make the listener feel uncomfortable, as the topic of the song should. It’s not fun, but it’s important.”

And that tension absolutely lands, with sweetness wrapped around something melancholy and despairing. It’s thoughtful, uneasy listening.

Anyway I’m very much looking forward to their third album, which will no doubt still present at least some opportunities to stare into the darkest of forests. And if Pinegaze is about contemplating trees, perhaps this is something new entirely: shoegaze for people who’ve stopped shyly staring at their shoes and started staring at society to demand what the hell it’s playing at. Or perhaps we’ve overthought it. Maybe there isn’t a grand new socio-urban shoegaze subgenre emerging from the Nordic shadows. Perhaps it’s just an excuse to construct a new song around the musical instrument they all learnt to play together at the Finnish high school they met at 13 years ago.

Either way, I’m just so excited to see them back.

Release date: 27th February

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