We featured Old Haunt’s first track, ‘Ghost Town’, on our Feet on the Ground series, saying that we were very excited about what was to come from the Montreal act in the future. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long for 空 (or ‘Emptiness’), an acoustic EP that has all of the haunting qualities that made ’Ghost Town’ so captivating.
To describe an act called Old Haunt as haunting may sound a tad obvious, but there is something about the solemn lyrics and gentle instrumentation that invokes eerie visitations in empty rooms, be they spectral figures or just stories and emotions trickling back through time. This isn’t a terrifying/poltergeistic/levitating-bedsheet type of haunting but rather a quiet contemplative meeting of past and present, something that is thoughtful and comforting, melancholic in a nice way.
The last song on the EP is a cover of Townes van Zandt’s ‘Tower Song’, a lovely little take that works well with more hushed vocals.
空 is available on a pay-what-you-can basis over at Bandcamp.