Albums by this artist

With Ghost (2000)

Damon & Naomi

With Ghost

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» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Damon & Naomi With Ghost Sub Pop, 2000 RiYL: Galaxie 500, Dead Can Dance, Ghost, Low

Ex-Galaxie 500 principals Naomi Yang and Damon Krukowski brought in some outside help for the follow-up to 1998's Playback Singers. At first, on the appropriately-titled With Ghost, a collaboration with the Japanese band Ghost, Damon & Naomi's homespun harmonies seem unaffected by the presence of anyone else.

Indeed, the pair alternately sound like Sonny & Cher backed by the Beach Boys ("The Mirror Phase") or a somnambulant Bob Dylan (Krukowski's stately "Judah And The Maccabees" resembles a version of "Knocking On Heaven's Door"). The gospel-rock of "I Dreamed Of The Caucasus" even brings Jefferson Airplane to mind. But then comes Ghost's Masaki Batoh's baroque madrigal "The New World," and, by the time Yang's Gregorian contralto ventures on the lengthy hymn "The Great Wall," the album has embraced such far-off inspirations as Popol Vuh and Dead Can Dance.

Nirvana is approached through dilated songs that are intense meditations, particularly when Batoh and Krukowski's guitars indulge in the acousting doodling of "Don't Forget." Elsewhere, quiet guitar and piano strumming and floating vocals fill the first part of "Tanka" with a sense of ecstasy and wonder.

The Japanese trio forms the perfect backing for the two American intellectuals and gives their music a supernatural dimension. Ghost have helped Damon & Naomi reinvent themselves on this dream-pop excursion, which crowns the pairs's 12-year research project on mood music.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.