*** Ghost

TUNE IN TURN ON FREE TIBET

(Drag City)

&

*** Ghost

SNUFFBOX IMMANENCE

(Drag City)

With the 32 minutes of mood swings on Tune In's title cut, Ghost show why they're Japan's reigning schizo-delics. The track is a rush of white noise and swelling decay that buzzes like a power station. At one point it echoes like an outtake from Eno's Another Green World; at another it bubbles into a cacophony of sine waves as Masaki Batoh pounds the album's only drums into an organ-led march. Although largely atonal, the track does bring to mind the melodic peaks of a dozen symphonies filtered through shortwave interference. And just when you think Ghost are going to ride those peaks forever, they crash to calmer, prettier plateaux where Batoh's chiming acoustic guitar and deep vocals are pierced by guitarist Michio Kurihara's acid inventions and flute-like feedback, à la his heroes Quicksilver and Can.

The rest of Tune In and the simultaneously released Snuffbox Immanence are filled with sweet mantras, space-rock fairy dust, and wild-child balladry. Whereas the band churned out the thick, dark, incense-like tunes of the pro-Dalai Lama Tune In in just a month, it's reported they needed a year of overdubbing trumpets, glockenspiels, and weeping strings to construct Snuffbox's pastoral, folk-trance melodies. Snuffbox includes a surreal summer-of-love romp through the Stones' "Live with Me," but "Daggma" is the standout. Its cello constructions rub against vibes that are locked in Steve Reich-ian repetitions, yielding a beautiful yearning that deconstructs into a liberating unrest.

-- Tristram Lozaw