Ghost Brain by Buck Gooter

“This is ghost-motivated electronic rock.”

That’s how Buck Gooter’s sole earthly member, Billy Brett, describes the band’s upcoming album, Ghost Brain. It depicts a collaboration beyond the mortal coil, as he honors the dying wish of his bandmate, Terry Turtle, who passed away in 2019. Terry urged Billy to keep playing his music and continue their musical partnership, which saw the duo record more than a dozen records and tour relentlessly, equally mesmerizing and freaking out crowds in hundreds of gritty DIY spaces and revered venues alike over the course of 14 years. That promise culminated in their 2021 album Head In A Bird Cage, and persists with Ghost Brain.

As Ghost Brain symbolizes Terry’s eternal presence in Buck Gooter through a vast archive of recordings and raw lyrics, the title also implies the state of the band beyond just this album. There is no era of Buck Gooter that can be truly labeled as “after Terry Turtle.”

Ghost Brain was written following a two-year songwriting break for Buck Gooter, as the COVID-19 pandemic halted touring plans and Billy took time to figure out the band’s next steps. That downtime was not without experimentation, however, and ideas sketched out in quarantine became some of the substance of Ghost Brain. Billy began writing these songs as he traditionally would for past Buck Gooter albums - cobbling together a pile of beats which he would then send to Terry, and the two would build the songs from there. This time, he sent those beats to Oliver Ackermann, frontman of noise rock titans A Place To Bury Strangers, who mastered the demos at his New York studio, Death By Audio. Billy later traveled to Death By Audio to track the songs and complete the album.

The album contains the hallmarks of Buck Gooter’s sound, described about as close as one can attempt as “primal industrial blues” - chaos, synth-driven noise, the clash of machinery, caveman-tier percussion, and Billy’s sardonic clamor. Oliver Ackermann features on most of the tracks as well, such as the distorted, aggro bass riff on the scorching, aptly titled “Burning Glass,” the album’s lead single. Abrasive drum samples hold up tracks like Ghost Brain’s opener, “The Serger,” “Symbiotic,” and “Tail of the Beast,” while others such as “Knurling” feature an ambient drone throughout. Like his departed bandmate, Billy even waxes poetic with spoken word performances on “Eight Bladed Iris” and “Chain Stringer Man,” where, over languid, looped, and plucked pedal steel he delivers a sarcastic, *almost* nihilistic sermon (say what you want, at least it’s an ethos). Of course, Billy’s snarl is just as frequent on the album with tracks like “Fragments,” a manifesto that boxes your ears with a clash of primitive war drums, Oliver’s bass riffs, and industrial noise.

As the album title implies, the musings of Terry’s “Ghost Brain” are present throughout the entire album, just as his guitar and chain mail mask stand as a forever haunting tribute on Buck Gooter’s stage. He can be heard through voice samples (ranging from shit talking to the last voicemail message Terry ever left on Billy's phone) and drones…even an improv MicroKorg jam. But Terry makes his entrance crooning on “Buddha,” in which he ponders mortality. Terry also sings lead on the foreboding, yet rhythmic, “Carl Sagan,” as well as “Time Flies” - which sets one of his most well-known poems to music.

Ghost Brain demonstrates the clear fact that we have not heard the last of Buck Gooter, and with more recordings left to discover, we certainly have not heard the last of Terry Turtle. But while the album continues to pay tribute to his legacy with Buck Gooter, it depicts a path forward. Billy Hunt, who collaborated with Billy Brett in the project Dendriforms, features on the track “Distant Future” - a bright and relatively uncommon optimistic number for the band - and was recently announced as Brett’s new partner in Buck Gooter. The sound throughout Ghost Brain is that of a will to rebuild after desolation. It’s almost like some of the most beloved post-apocalyptic movies: bleak, but hopeful.

--Calvin Pynn

Ghost-motivated electronic rock.

TO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUME.

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