Drunken Prayer – The Name Of The Ghost Home
“Drunken Prayer is Americana in the sense that America is a place of menace, hybrid vigor and unending strangeness.”Robert Duncan, CREEM Magazine
DRUNKEN PRAYER (AKA Morgan Geer) is releasing his sixth full-length album, THE NAME OF THE GHOST IS HOME, c0-produced by Paul Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Royal Trux) and Morgan Geer via Fluff and Gravy Records on 4.22.22.
The Name of the Ghost is Home, the new album by Drunken Prayer, transcends the bounds of Americana. This is music that could have emerged from a highly blissed-out biker bar or at a swampy ashram. For the last year Morgan Geer has been working from his home studio building on tracks initially recorded in Albuquerque, NM at Empty House Studios, home of doom metal bands like OM and Sleep. The end result evokes an ominous feedback-and-driftwood aesthetic.
There’s something Whitmanesque about all of this: the particle subsumed into the cosmic swirl, the beautiful crass open road; like a film score for a road movie of the mind.
“Sweetheart of the Picket Line” begins the album. It’s a modern Romeo and Juliet story about two people finding love and tragedy from across the riot barricade, that quietly introduces the rest of the record. What comes after is like a portal through time to a better world.
“Landlines and Rabbit Ears (Nachos for One)”was written by Morgan Geer at the end of a long winter tour of England with The Handsome Family, stranded in a motel lounge with nothing to do but brood. This song was inspired by the most appropriate thing on the menu.
“Oasis in the Yard” is a surrealist party-rock antidote to bummer fatigue. Eric Slick from Dr. Dog joins the group here to deliver a killer Billy Preston Goats Head Soup era funky clavinet.
The calm between the storm of hooks and riffs on this album are songs like “Crazy Alone” and “God of the Sea“, playfully loco tunes about losing your grip on reality. Geer recorded layered vocal harmonies by himself to the former, adding a nice woozy and bonkers vibe to this meditation on isolation. It’s all Morgan, a sonic hall of mirrors for those of us staring at our own reflections and wondering what the hell is going on. The result is like s slightly crooked hand-rolled cigarette: a homespun something to calm the jitters and measure out a few minutes of precious time.
The biggest departure from the Drunken Prayer norm here is “Sunderland“. Geer doesn’t often write with hat in hand sincerity but this story is gravely serious and he doesn’t dance around it. This beautifully orchestrated song paints a shadowy picture of an Appalachian landscape where “flags forever fly at half-mast”, but promises that “broken dreams can still come true” with a pre-dawn whisper.
The cinematic closer and namesake of the album plays out as a final dusty showdown between a solipsistic mind and a bleeding heart. Repeating the phrase, “The Name of the Ghost is Home”, the band rises in slow motion. It sounds like the climactic ending to a tragic spaghetti western.
Morgan Geer lives in the beautiful, hard-scrabble mountains of southern Appalachia. These stories were written from his front porch off a country road where cars go too fast and unchained dogs run wild. The Name of the Ghost is Home takes a hard, but loving look at the people and places we hold dear for better or worse.
Press Photo (photo credit: Christa de Mayo)
Credits
Co-Produced by Paul Oldham and Morgan Geer
Mixed and Mastered by Paul Oldham
All songs written by Morgan Geer, © Drunken Prayer 2022 ASCAP
Recorded at Empty House in Albuquerque, NM by Matthew Tobias
Overdubbed and edited at House of Morgan in Asheville, NC
Morgan Geer vocals, guitars, bass, harmonica, synthesizers, organ, percussion; Alex McMahon: electric guitar, pedal steel guitar, synthesizer; Aaron Price: piano; Eric Slick harpsichord, clavinet; Greg Williams drums; Christa de Mayo vocals; Patrick Hamilton: synthesizer
Testimonials
“Beautiful and inspiring. Kindred spirits” Mike Watt, Minutemen, Iggy Pop and the Stooges
“Morgan Geer is the real thing— a songwriter with a heart as deep as the Marianas Trench and as sensitive as the wet hands of a raccoon.” – Rennie Sparks, The Handsome Family
“Genuine, smart. fun and powerful . This will stand the test of time.” – Janet Bean, Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater
Find Drunken Prayer Here
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