HEAR: Psychedelic Country | Ghost Party – “Yankee Reaper”
Ghost Party brings its blend of country and psychedelic rock to the forefront with the enigmatic “Yankee Reaper” track. This is a sound we rarely come across. Ghost Party cleverly crafts a spooky track just in time for fall and Halloween. Check it out below:
“Yankee Reaper” borrows its name from a Van Dyke Parks album, conveys a sense of nostalgia and loss through the guise of the surreal, and is treated with a vintage sounding gospel stomp arrangement, where barrelhouse piano, soaring pedal steel, fuzzed out guitar, and hand claps all create a ruckus, supported by the pulse of a finger picked acoustic guitar. Evocative of a psychedelic tent revival, “Yankee Reaper” suggests some sort of cosmic mashup between T.Rex and the White Album sessions. Ghost Party is joined by pedal steel master Will Van Horn, notable for his contributions to Khruangbin and Leon Bridges’ latest collaborative EPs.
Bio:
Ghost Party is the nostalgic, retro psych revival project of McCullough Ferguson. Mixing the ingredients of classic acts from the golden era of 60s psych and Americana music with modern interpreters as well a adding a bit of the subliminal sublime, spooky nature of the great beyond, we arrive at the Ghost Party.
Part garage rock, part cosmic country, part psych, Ghost Party came into existence in Houston Texas in 2020. As half of psychedelic rock tricksters Flower Graves, Ferguson has shared the stage with Roky Erickson, Night Beats, Holy Wave, and many more.
Ferguson is joined by Austin Sepulvado, Victor Sanchez, and Kendrick Ballard on bass, drums, and organ/keys/mellotron, respectively. They have released two singles in 2023, tracked and produced by Steve Christensen, notable for his production work with Khruangbin. Ghost Party will be releasing their first full length album soon and will be appearing at River Revival alongside The Black Angels.