GHOSTWOMAN – WELCOME TO THE CIVILIZED WORLD

There is no reason for GHOSTWOMAN’s fourth album to exist. Welcome to the Civilized World is

born to a broken world; a corrupt inheritance – Evan Uschenko and Ille van Dessel are under no

illusions about its futility – and yet, this thing is alive. It’s an allergic reaction to the times we are

living in: a welt that screams to be itched, the purging of a modern sickness they could no

longer stomach. Beyond rationality, this record came from a place of gut feeling and a lack of

any other option. Hell may have cracked wide open – but GHOSTWOMAN will not go quietly.

GHOSTWOMAN itself only exists because Uschenko and van Dessel were the ones “stupid

enough to commit to it”. Conceived by Uschenko after cutting his teeth as a touring

multi-instrumentalist, the project was brought to life in an abandoned farmhouse in Diamond

City, Alberta. There, for two months, he would make the self-released, self-titled debut album

which was produced and dubbed directly to custom-made cassette tapes. The music has always

been beautifully inhospitable, earned only by those curious enough to seek it out.

Expanded by friends on the Edmonton circuit, Uschenko took the project over the pond where

he would meet drummer Ille van Dessel. Drawn to her talent and sheer excitement to make

music which had been untouched by ego or cynicism, the two became inseparable. A new life

had begun.

And then there were two. GHOSTWOMAN became a head-on collision between the switchblade

rust of his guitars and her caustic drum beats which march them on toward a shared oblivion.

Welcome to the Civilized World is an album to be a pure distillation of their shared vision. From

its earliest sketch to its final form, the only people to touch it were GHOSTWOMAN themselves.

The meaning of the album is inseparable from its meaninglessness. As Uschenko puts it: “The

album is inspired by the absurdity of human behaviour and the circus that is life: sometimes

feels like being in a room with no floor – that’s where a lot of these songs come from.” After

losing friends to suicide over the past year, the suspension of disbelief required to wade through

the everyday had dissipated. If there is any meaning at all to Welcome to the Civilized World, it is

simply to keep going: there is no other choice.

Musically, GHOSTWOMAN are a sharper beast than ever: hypnotic spells of psych-grunge,

decaying Americana and instrumental locked-horns. Uschenko, who presides over the vocals,

insists they are not important. Much of the lyrics are nonsense, not written as much as

abstractly sketched to feel out the shape of the music itself – but even in Uschenko’s dream

grammar, the force and feeling are no less potent.

The band’s process is intuitive rather than calculated; sounds are made in a chain reaction to

one another. “5 Gold Pieces”, with its filthy guitars and snarling, livewire vocals was recorded as

a test after they bought a tape machine. The first shot is often the best, and that test is what

you hear today. Everything they used to record is gone. “We buy old equipment or instruments

which have a bunch of life and soul in it until we’ve used it all up, and then sell it again so we

can buy something else,” explains Van Dessel.

True to the band’s origins, Welcome to the Civilized World is the story of Canada and Belgium

across the span of two years. The tape machine seemed to pick up different shades wherever

they recorded, whether that was in the home of a close friend of Uschenko’s, for example,

surrounded by creature comforts including the dog he loves, [Levon - named after the late great

Levon Helm] after whom the album track was christened. Or in a cottage in Ardennes, Belgium

during an interminable winter surrounded by blankets of snow; an hour’s walk away from

anything civilized.

“Alive”, the record’s lead single, was written on a particularly perfect day in rural Belgium. In an

earlier iteration, the track was called “Pondi” – named after a hedgehog they had discovered at

the pond in the garden, which they felt to be a good omen. The writing of it was frictionless and

instinctive; another “line-check-turned-complete-song”. In van Dessel’s mind, “Alive” is like a

moment captured as a photograph – something ephemeral that existed once, and will never be

replicated again. And that, in its essence, is a GHOSTWOMAN record.

Welcome to the Civilized World is not concerned with making music for an audience, not for the

music industry and not for any particular point other than the thrill of it. Nothing matters, we

are all doomed, the sun will swallow the earth and our efforts turn to dust anyway. The band

will continue to play as the ship goes down.