Ghost Frequency is Cameron Undy’s solo guitar album showcasing his fascination with ancient rhythms of the African diaspora, what he refers to as “ghostly artefacts”. The music’s apparent simplicity hides the inner geometric workings by this deep thinking artist. Ghost Frequency is a major work that sheds new light on Undy’s musical vision with 11 original compositions that present an exquisite and original musical statement.
From the artist:
The Ghost Frequency project is born from my fascination with ancient rhythms of the African diaspora. The idea that these rhythms evolved over thousands of years through human dance, ceremony and ritual is such a powerful one. That the vast majority of this evolution has gone unrecorded and never to be heard again, yet enriches such a wide variety of contemporary music is somewhat mind-blowing!
These rhythms are like ghostly artefacts, that when I ‘pick them up’ and ‘play’ them I can never be totally certain that I am ‘seeing’ them for what they are/were. And yet these distant relics of aeons past fill me with inspiration and imagining, of an everlasting connection with ancient civilisations. Like looking at the light from a star that burnt out millions of years ago they are as real and present as a footprint in the sand from a morning walk yet the sources of each are intangible in the present.
If you go looking for specific African rhythms in my music you may struggle because what I am playing are reflections, shadows and stellations of these ‘ghosts’. Rhythms I have created using natural sequence and generative, rule based principles of analog transformation. They are geometric distortions of the original archetypes, allowing me to enter ‘other places’ in my mind and body previously unknown. I am very grateful to African ritual culture and to Western scientific thinking for the paths made available to me to reach this ‘place’.
Widely known with a deep love of funk, afro-beat, avant-garde jazz and 20th century Classical music, Undy has performed as bassist on countless albums and released two albums with his afro-funk-jazz cult band 20th Century Dog, Bone and Mad Stream. In 2021 he released a self-produced beats album, Blood Shot (Earshift Music). Undy is also known as co0owner of the former Sydney club Venue 505 and Acoustic Ritual.
1. Ghost
2. Footprint
3. Orbit
4. Stars
5. Reflection
6. Sand
7. Shadow
8. Jellyfish
9. Wood
10. Magnolia
11. Shed
Cameron Undy - acoustic guitar
Recorded by Richard Belkner at Free Energy Device Studios, 2021
Cover image by Gordon Undy
Inside image by Sally Flegg
Design by Brodie McAllister
All compositions by Cameron Undy
About the Music
Ghost - The mind may think of music and the body play it so the soul may express.
Footprint - A footprint in the sand is like a shadow of movements past.
Orbit- The balance of the cosmos is unseen yet the most powerful force we know.
Stars - Distant relics of aeons, filled with imagining
Reflection - Reflections are distortion, sometimes more beautiful than reality.
Sand - Time, dissolved into a billion grains.
Shadow - Shadows reveal light, time, space and dimension.
Jellyfish - Their form is unaltered by the flow of the ocean yet never appears the same twice.
Wood - Wood records everything from birth to death.
Magnolia - An ancient genus, symbolic of everlasting connections.
Shed - Any place or time, where and when I practice music (usually not a shed)