Lindi Ortega – From the Ether
If we’re being honest, there really isn’t much in the way of great Halloween music out there. One spin of “Monster Mash” in mid-October, and I’m good until the Christmas carolers come a-wassailing. Lindi Ortega decided that needed fixing. The previously hiatus-ing singer-songwriter is back with her first new music in six years. From the Ether is a Spooky Season treat, full of melancholy befitting the time of early dusk and decaying leaves, with enough ghosts around to keep you on edge well after the first snowflakes fly.
From the Ether was first inspired by (appropriately enough) a cemetery walk that Ortega took with producer Mike Meadows to visit the Austin, Texas graves of John and Alan Lomax. The father-son duo specialized in early field recordings, and this album’s lead track, “The Epitaph,” has an out-in-the-real-world feel, from handclaps to record scratches, as well as borrowing actual epitaphs to ground the song in days long past – “What wild and mournful song will softly weep.” This nod to the past carries over to “The Ancestors,” an eerie call for guidance – “Take me to the right path/Open up the door.” Ortega also cries out to a specific forebearer in “The Spiritual Advisor.” Her father, Paco Ortega, passed during the pandemic, and Lindi acknowledges, in this otherwise upbeat tune, how deeply his loss is felt – “Oh all I know is wherever he goes/It ain’t a place that I’m allowed to follow” – while inviting him to haunt (and counsel) her from beyond.
Ghosts of all kinds are found in From the Ether, from dancing spirits in the all-Spanish “El Fantasma” to the all-out terrors found in the slightly slinky “The Fear.” But an entirely different haunt inhabits “The Ghost” – lost love. Here, it’s the singer who inhabits the specter, if unwillingly. Playing an out-of-tune piano, Ortega feels unseen by the one she loves the most – “I’m never more alone than I’m with you.” The music is supplemented with rattling chains, but even with all the supernatural trappings, the point of the song is very of-this-Earth – “You never had the urge to bring me back to life” It’s eerily sad precisely because we’ve all, at least once, been haunted by the memory of someone we know we’ve done wrong. Ortega has a full-length, more traditional record ready for next year, but this song will stick in your craw well after that album comes out.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “The Ghost” – Along with everything mentioned above, Ortega also provides her own gorgeous harmonies on this one. By stepping out of the macabre character she’s created for the album, she reveals a bit of her own ghosts. It ends up being one of the sweetest, saddest (and best) songs I’ve heard this year.
Musicians on From the Ether include Lindi Ortega (lead and harmony vocals, clapping, acoustic guitar, kalimba, piano), Mike Meadows (sound design, drums, percussion, electric bass, background vocals, MOOG synthesizer, electric guitar, drum programming, lap steel guitar, squimbal, talking drum, ambient percussion, clapping, glockenspiel) and Etan Sekons (acoustic guitar).
Go here to download/stream From the Ether (out now): https://orcd.co/lortegaether
Check out tour dates here: https://lindiortega.com/events
