by There are certain songs that artists almost hope no one can relate to. Pouring out like a desperate attempt to purge something awful and difficult, they feel more like personal cries rather than any hopeful desire to connect.
But, as always, they do. No experience is ever truly isolated, no person is ever truly an island, and so a song like Erin LeCount’s ‘Machine Ghost’ finds a community.
When talking about the track, LeCount has said that she wanted to make the song sound like disassociation. The opening vocal flares come in and out like they’re breathing, but even more specifically, like they’re being forced to breathe. With the distortion and effects merging something human and angelic with something electronic, it feels exactly like the song title – like a machine ghost breathing.
“I didn’t want us to fuck, I wanted us to make love / I didn’t want the cups on my bedside table stacking up,” LeCount cuts through, beginning bluntly and starkly before delivering the emotional blow as she sings, “Cause I said I would get it together, but I don’t think I’ll be ready to ever let it go / Old habits die hard and I’m trying to sleep the damage off.”
It all begins here as she lets us into this scene that is clearly deeply personal, of a bedroom left in disarray during a period of depression and disconnection, prompted by a traumatic reminder or an inability to get out from the past. That’s exactly what LeCount likely hoped none of her fans would be able to connect to, wanting to think that they’ve all been spared the pain of that experience, but alas.
“‘Machine Ghost’ is song about dissociation, the feeling of separation from your body in everyday life, at parties and the most intimate moments,” LeCount explained of her own song, “It’s about going to extreme lengths to try and evoke some feeling again, no matter what it takes and what risk it involves, seeking cheap thrills and painful pleasure. An observation of my own body, relationships and my take on what it means to be both the ghost and the machine.”
But what’s so special about the song, and what’s so special about LeCount, is the way she manages to marry the sound and message together. Having previously spoken to Far Out about her mission to learn how to produce better and better, she now self-produces all her work to make sure the sonics carry her meaning too. On ‘Machine Ghost’, that disassociation matches with a desperate attempt to feel is felt as the song soars between heavy, haunting harmonies set to disconnected keys, into big, bold choruses with thumping drums like a person knocking at the door of the world.
To say it’s gorgeous isn’t enough. ‘Machine Ghost’ is impactful as LeCount lays bare and builds a world around it that both holds it and reflects it even clearer.
