Wild Arrows Release New Single 'Here's The Ghost'

NYC-based band Wild Arrows share "Here's The Ghost" the final pre-release single from their new album Loving The Void (pre-order). The song debuted today at The Week In Pop and can also be shared at YouTube.

"Here's the Ghost'' was a true collaborative effort between the band's Mike Law and the collective of producers Gary Atturio (Psychic TV, Belle Mare), Grady Walker and Nick Krill (The War On Drugs, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), who worked on the album at Law's studio, The Civil Defense.

On the song Mike Law says:

"'Here's the Ghost' should be the last song played at the dance. I didn't go to the prom in high school because I knew they wouldn't play this song. To be fair I hadn't written it but I was still insulted that they weren't going to play it.

In the studio we were having a tough time connecting the first half of the song with the second half or even capturing the vibe at all. The producers I was working with, Gary Atturio and Grady Walker were right on board with the beginning but Grady really believed in the idea for the ending. He led the idea of micing the drums with Nick and got that big sound and most importantly, the vibe. It took us a while but we figured it out and eventually blended it exactly how I hoped.

It's not really a key change but it feels like one because it's unexpected and open sounding. I'm not a Led Zeppelin fan but it reminds me of Stairway to Heaven or something grandiose like if Jimmy Page had synths instead of guitar solos. I mean, at its core it's so obviously a love song about a love not confined to one lifetime so it's supposed to be expansive sounding and it's own universe."

"Here's The Ghost" follows acclaimed pre-album singles "Dark Glass" and "Crowded House" which are available now on all streaming platforms for playlist shares. The Sisyphean video for "Dark Glass" debuted last month at Treble Zine while lead single "Crowded House" debuted at Post-Punk earlier this spring.

To celebrate the release Wild Arrows will be playing a hometown record release show on June 30 at Baby's All Right. Tickets are available here.

Wild Arrow's Mike Law is a songwriter who has caught the ear and admiration of other musicians since his teenage years. Perhaps you'd say a musican's, musician? His early bands were asked to share stages with a broad range of musicians from Fugazi to the Violent Femmes, Minus the Bear to Beach House and Converge. Closely aligned with the DIY scene of Boston and then NYC, Law has released a dozen records with his bands EULCID, New Idea Society and now Wild Arrows.

The respect of his peers might find one of the most influential drummers of his generation, Alan Cage of Quicksand on the new Wild Arrows album or Stephen Brodsky of Cave In switching vocals back and forth with Law in their band New Idea Society on tours throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan.

After the last Wild Arrows album unexpectedly dipped into a Dylan/Prine hybrid of poetry and Low-style modern production Law even appeared in a group video singing with Patti Smith, Michael Stipe and Joan Baez to raise awareness to vote.

All the kinetic energy seems to have led to the upcoming Wild Arrows album and Law's best collection of work to date, Loving the Void.

On Loving The Void Mike Law says: "There are a few things that happen on this record I've never heard before and moods that blend together in a way that is new to my ears, very much on purpose. There is no filler, it's all in service to the song and album. I wanted to make an album that is a linear document of a human lifespan but only with emotions that you feel at every stage of life, just in different ways at each age.

Not long ago I realized that with important feelings there is no present, future, or past tense. With important feelings it's all a prism that reflects differently at different moments. For example you feel anger and love as a child, an adult and as an old person. I wanted to sing in no tense and all these songs do that. They are that prism"

The album opener is a piano version of the song Silent Film manipulated through a cassette 4trk under an impromptu recording of a friend of the band reading Law's favorite passage from the Surrealist book Chants De Maldoror. "Reasoning with the Guards," one of the strongest and immediately compelling tracks, follows soon after offering perhaps the most evocative and best lyrical moments on the album and certainly the unexpected ending as a dramatic highlight that moves instantly into its companion song "Almost Like Oblivion."

The latter of which feels like it is quite literally bending time as you listen. One of the most easily accessible songs, "Crowded House" runs through a litany of youthful confusion into the Nick Cave-esqe "New Name". But Loving the Void really hits its stride in the second half as "Dark Glass," the masterful "Here's the Ghost" and the understated "No Lights" round off the record.

All having built toward the almost transcendent acceptance of the albums closer "Night Time" where Law sings softly about someone or something skipping the ending and how the things that he said, "couldn't mean what I meant"

Loving the Void really hits its stride in the second half as "Dark Glass," the masterful "Here's the Ghost" and the understated "No Lights" round off the record. All having built toward the almost transcendent acceptance of the albums closer "Night Time" where Law sings softly about someone or something skipping the ending and how the things that he said, "couldn't mean what I meant"

Law adds, "It's definitely a conceptual album. There are pieces of in-between songs that I've been playing since I was 17 and it's meant to be heard in order. There's a build, not in intensity but in purpose."

Like most of Law's best work it is an album filled with dichotomy and the most thrilling moments on record he's been able to capture. While there may seem to be peace at the end of the album it might be disturbed with Law having made something that truly can't be ignored no matter how hard he tries.

Watch the new music video here:

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