by Ljubinko Zivkovic (@zivljub)
The moment "Seventy" opens the album, with its wordless, echoing vocals and background electronics, you might get the notion why Brooklyn-based writer, musician, and content producer Attia Taylor named her latest solo album Space Ghost. Yet, there is a bit more to ponder there. Actually, the title is a reference to the Adult Swim show Space Ghost Coast to Coast, which Taylor watched along with a slew of other cartoons as a child. That reference to childhood and youth in general is the key to this album, and the way Taylor remembers and perceives her youth.
Actually, it seems that those memories do not exactly have that happy connotation in front of them. Throughout the album, and in songs like "Mildest Winner" or "Basic Economics," we get the feelings of loneliness and grief in all shades and colors. Taylor, who is is also the founder of Womanly, a magazine and community empowering women and non-binary individuals to take charge of their health through art and creativity, expresses those feelings with some intricate lyrics and an intriguing combination of lo-fi visions of both psych, avant-garde and funk (“Space Ghost”). Tracing the musical influences, they range from quite a number of colorful sources from the disco soul of Donna Summer, to trip-hop variations of Broadcast, to full-on experimentalism of Laurie Anderson, the latter two fully audible in tracks like "Broad and Cherry."
Still, although all the quoted sounds may sound disparate and coming from possibly too broad a spectrum, Taylor is able to neatly and imaginatively tie them up into a cohesive musical and lyrical whole that fully makes sense. As such, Space Ghost leaves a (positive) ghostly trace that beckons multiple listening.