Andrew Muecke - music, instruments, vocals, engineering
Ashley Starkey - vocals, samples, keyboards, photography, video
Influences
David Sylvian, The Beatles, The Clash, Japan, Talking Heads, Yes.....(Andrew).
You'll struggle to hear some of my 'influences' in our sound but some of what I've loved over the years & recently includes: LCD Soundsystem, The Rolling Stones, Hot Chip, Sam Cooke, Mahalia jackson, Twin Peaks, Jack Kerouac, KLF, Songs for Drella, Velvet Underground, Guru-Jazzmatazz, Gillian Welch, Mathew Barney, Neal Cassady, Alabama 3, Jamie T, The Herd, Beck, Muscles, Motown, Johnny Cash, TestEagles, Modest Mouse, Pixies, The Merry Pranksters, harmonics....and anything that gets me dancing, Disco....The Doors, Sam Cooke, Al Green....I could go on & on & on......(Ashley).
Sounds Like
I try to be as original as possible but more than once we've been compared to David Bryne and Brian Eno's 'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts'. - (Andrew)
Downbeat, upbeat, kinda trippy, pristine sounding instrumentation combined with scratchy, rough samples and vocals.
Some critics recently said...."The kind of thing you could play on a loop at cocktail bars of inoffensive dinner parties.....inane chatter.....vibe is so laidback it could have been culled from the soundtrack to the seminal humanist film Koyaanisqatsi." I think they're being critical but I like cocktail bars & front bars (even more before they banned smoking there) & both inoffensive & offensive dinner parties. Inane chatter - well that's gotta be a put down but I'm not trying to be 'deep' with the lyrics, maybe a little mysterious but it's more about the mood than the message & I'm not adverse to a bit of "hipster nonsense". Koyaanisqatsi - hell that's a masterpiece - I'd take that as something beautiful! - (Ashley)
There's me (Ashley) & Andrew. The two of us are Happy Ghosts. We first got together in 2005 working on a film soundtrack. We had a lot of fun on that project and so we just carried on from there, enjoying ourselves with sound and vision. Andrew plays many instruments and he's been in other bands including At Random & Andrissa. My background's in photography, music videos & documentaries.
D I Y
YOU CAN GET OUR TRACKS ON i-tunes
Just hit this little button and you'll be taken there.....
Here's what we look like.....
Me on the left, Andrew on the right. We've been working together for near on four years but this is our first 'publicity' shot.
Here's what we've been up to.....
15 new tracks ready, our second album Silver Lining. Released in Oct 08.
Ammunition
I set out one night to make a new song out of some old voice & sound samples, 8 months later I finished Ammunition, not a song but an hour long audio visual collage. I just suddenly really got into creating this - it was a lot of fun and it kind of took on a life of it's own......I filmed, sampled, downloaded & recorded what I wanted from my immediate world around me and cut it into Ammunition. The main components are Happy Ghosts music; US 1950's advertorial films, guides to 'better' living and government propaganda from the Prelinger Internet Archives; and footage and sound I captured in my backyard and studio in South Australia. The 'blurb' goes like this....Ammunition takes the viewer on a wild and dreamy ride from the everyday world to the fantastic and beyond. From sublime moments of floating in space through the beauty and harshness of the natural world to jarring explosions and crashes of the American dream. The film's catch cry is 'Beware of Boredom'. I didn't set out to make a 'trip' film but that's the way some people describe Ammunition. I prefer otherworldly or surreal.....but I can't deny it's trippy! Selected for the New York Independent Film Festival & short listed for the Byron Bay Film Festival. Hard to describe but how about - Baraka on acid in the suburbs!
Watch the trailer here...
Our first album Secret Code of Beauty released 2007 . Got plenty of community radio support (thankyou very much) including hitting Number 6 on the 3D charts in South Australia, spinning on Edge Radio in Hobart and we're 'big' in Canada charting at no 30 on CBFX , 19 on CHUO, 8 on CHLY, 26 on CFRC, 22 on CIUT etc.....
Loosen Up EP/DVD released 2006.
The video clip for Loosen Up made the final 10 in the Below Ground Video Fest Awards 2006 (Australia & NZ).
Something Beautiful EP released 2006. Something Beautiful included on 3D Radio's Depth Charge 5 compilation. Something Beautiful video selected as a finalist in the International Portable Film Festival 2006.
Our first clip Booze & Pills is selected as a finalist in the Below Ground Music Video Festival Awards 2005 (Australia & New Zealand) it was also banned by Channel 31 or local community television station. They didn't like the needle! I don't like the censor!
"Nocturne" est le nouveau morceau d'Allure. Il est en ligne dès maintenant accompagné de la plus belle photo de Gauthier Amano, pour Allure.
LOVE
Allure
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New tune "Nocturne" is online right now ! Hope you enjoy this baroque autumn track. And please take a look to the best Gauthier Amano picture ! (the new one with the moon)
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If you are trying to get exposure for your band, GET THOUSANDS OF MUSIC PLAYS, PROFILE VIEWS AND FRIEND, then this might be the most important message you'll ever read on myspace
(WE DO ALL THE WORK FOR YOU!)
You are on your way to success on myspace by using our state of the art revolutionary services to increase your music plays, profile views, and friend count. Make it to the top ten on myspace charts for any genre and you are guaranted to sell hundreds of your mp3s a day through snocap ( myspace powered mp3 store) Yes, we can help you to be on top of the charts. What happens when we promote your music page:
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Our team of professionals markets and promotes bands to the top of the myspace charts. We will help you get noticed by the large record labels and help you get your music heard by the masses, for the cheapest prices available. GO TO OUR MYSPACE PAGE OR WEBSITE TO GET THOUSANDS OF: MUSIC PLAYS, PROFILE VIEWS, ADDS
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Empires Crumble but the Fool Plays On (new protest song & video)
dad saw a man in Vietnam put the barrel of his gun in between the legs of a little girl Vietnamese she was the enemy of the king
empires crumble but the fool plays on es que esta extranjero unconcious and upside down hasta otro dia
look at all the people with their circus and bread they lie in a lie and call it a life and they work to forget that every thought in their head is rigged from the tier above and not the heavenly one not the heavenly one
I'm one with the sun in more ways than one and if you want to be free if you even know what that means it's a long long row it's a long long row
empires crumble but the fool plays on es que esta extranjero unconcious and upside down hasta otro dia
look at all the people with their circus and bread they lie in a lie and call it a life and they work to forget that every thought in their head is rigged from the tier above and not the heavenly one not the heavenly one
dad saw a man in Vietnam throw the barrel of his gun in between the legs of a little one just for fun, she was the enemy we are the enemy
funky and slow.. thats tricky to do. but i can see the application of stuff like yours into alot of visual work. have you heard of VJs? vision jockeys. there is some software called resolume that is great and heaps of vjs on myspace.
dig it.. pristine instrumentation is right.. so pristine its almost chilling! like.. minimilist almost? id love to hear you fatten up your tracks.. layers or ambience or harmonies. something to catch the moment of drifting concentration and put it back on centre (which all slow music does face)..
lookin forward to hearing more.. you guys done any releases yet?
captivating/hypnotic music. I listened to all the songs in a trance, just astral projecting far far far away from the Dirty Southern USA! Give us more!
