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Publisher's Blurb
Camera Obscura Records is pleased to announce the long-awaited second release by Goblin Market, a side project of Green Pajamas' members Jeff Kelly and Laura Weller. Their 2001 debut release "Ghostland" garnered lavish praise for musically rendering the morbid and occult sexuality of the pre-Raphaelite movement, and their new release examines a current analog of this milieu for another mind-bending excursion into the themes of gothic literature. Titled "Haunted", it features songs inspired by the novels and poetry of celebrated American author Joyce Carol Oates.
The musicians' mutual fascination with this prolific and masterful author and her uniquely dark vision resulted in this collection of songs, the source material for which mines a broad range of her work including lesser-known short stories, a novel under Oates' nom de plume, and poetry. The musical style blends alternative and folk-rock sensibilities with rich vocal harmonies.
Exploding into flames with Weller's burning Green Pajamas-like rocker "Dark Days", "Haunted" again showcases the versatile songwriting and performance skills of Weller and Kelly, running the gamut from epic piano-driven psychodramas to delicate, perfectly-formed ballads, to sultry gothic (as opposed to "goth") rock. Most strikingly, the near nine minute opus "The Model" takes Kelly into new territory; icy electronics perfectly mapping out Oates' dark themes. As elsewhere on the release, prior exposure to Oates' work is not required for appreciation of what Kelly and Weller have achieved.
