In the fifteenth episode of On The Horizon, you can get to know Ghost Toast, the Hungarian progressive rock band, and one of the heralds of their upcoming fifth album (Shade Without Color), Chasing Time! The band, affiliated with Finland’s Inverse Records, is the ideal choice for anyone looking for a bit of instrumental progressive rock with quality execution. In case you recognise yourself, this episode is especially for you!
Band: Ghost Toast (HUN)
Song: Chasing Time
Genre: Progressive Rock
The backstory of Ghost Toast:
“Ghost Toast is an experimental, instrumental prog rock band from Debrecen. We love a lot of different kinds of music (heavy, soft, movie soundtrack, electronic, ambient, etc.) and we use these influences to create something special for us (and hopefully for the audience), wholeheartedly.
Our main influences are Tool, Orbital, Shpongle, Ulver, Ott, Jaga Jazzist, Plaid, Future Sound Of London, Mastodon, Pure Reason Revolution, Crippled Black Phoenix, The Mars Volta, A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails, Russian Circles, 65daysofstatic God Is an Astronaut, God Behind You, and a number of composers for movies.”
The band was formed in 2008 and operated with an unchanged line-up until 2020, but drummer László Papp left the band in early 2020. He was replaced by Zoltán Cserős, who was involved in the creation of Ghost Toast’s fifth album, Shade Without Color.
Discography
- Toast in the shell (2011) – self released –
- There is no en… (2013) – self released –
- Out of This World (2017) – Inverse Records (FIN) –
- Shape Without Form (2020) – Inverse Records (FIN) –
Current line-up:
János Stefán – bass guitar, effects, acoustic guitar, keyboard
Bence Rózsavölgyi – guitar
Zoltán Cserős – drums, drum programming
János Pusker – cello, keyboards
What is ‘Chasing Time’ about? Chasing Time is a meditation on the things you can’t change in the past, the things you have to live through in the present, and the things you want or don’t want from the future.
“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
What comes to our minds when listening to Chasing Time and watching the music video? Space, time, the human, the nature, the art, the movement, the stillness, the rising and the falling. In a word, everything.
Ghost Toast – Chasing Time
Why would ‘Chasing Time’ be your song? For one thing, the visuals of the clip are captivating, and if you immerse yourself in them, you’ll have a really pleasant audiovisual experience. It perfectly fits the mood of the song, conveying universal truths almost without words, making you ponder. Sometimes the intensity subsides and then picks up again, almost leaving you wanting more, to let the energy of the bursting energy become a roar. The barely repressed tension is intertwined with quite devotional melodies that do not create a cacophony but enhance variety. Many themes appear, either repeated or smudged, and something entirely new takes their place. All the time you are listening to one track, and yet it is like a whole universe opens up before you. So the title couldn’t be more appropriate, however, Chasing Time feels timeless to progressive rock lovers such as myself.
What can we expect from the next album? Shade Without Color will be available to the public on March 3, and will essentially be a sequel to Shape Without Form, released in 2020. Ghost Toast members shared the following interesting facts about the close link between the two albums:
“The majority of the songs were written at the same time and were intended to be a separately released ‘double album’. Both album titles are taken from T. S. Eliot‘s poem The Hollow Men, and both albums deal mainly with the theme of emptiness. As much as a basically instrumental piece of music can do that, of course.”
This should make Shape Without Form a good starting point for exploring Shade Without Color, and suggests that it is advisable not to get to know the mysteries of the fifth album on its own. Moreover, when it comes to exploring the theme of emptiness, there is a lot more involved than meets the eye. You can read more about this and much more later on!
If you’d like to keep an eye on Ghost Toast‘s activities and if you don’t want to miss their upcoming album, you can find everything you need to know by following the links below!
Website: http://www.ghosttoast.hu
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ghosttoastband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ghosttoast_hun
Bandcamp: https://ghosttoastband.bandcamp.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDLXjxzvhQdpYlECCTF2hEA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ghosttoastband
by: Fujimi & Wolfy
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