San Francisco's lo-fi duo Acid Ghost (lead vocalist and guitarist Ace Barcelon and drummer Mikey Mendoza) share an unexpected similarity with pop provocateur Lady Gaga with the inspiration from their latest album Warhol (2016). Unlike the latter's grandiose ambitions to "bring art culture into pop in a reverse Warholian expedition", however, Acid Ghost's Warholian turn is decidedly more personal and inward-looking. "Life", the first track on the album, features a short extract of an interview with Warhol that mentions his desire to "combine music and art and film altogether" - this idea of a totalizing blurring of boundaries between life and art is presumably what Barcelon what drawn to when crafting the album.
Tracks like "Dilemma" can nevertheless be appreciated intuitively, with its potent evocation of a melancholic and introverted state of mind. The energetic drum beat provides a steady momentum that contrasts with Barcelon's soft, languid vocals and the track's hazy lo-fi production. Barcelon's vocals are rarely fully audible, but close listening will leave you with a sense of a conflicted inner monologue centered around the need for forgiveness and personal redemption:
'and i wasting my time can you tell me now?
and will you ever forgive me one day somehow?
because i still care
and that i fucked up
but can we please move on
or am i not enough'
Lyrics: Musixmatch
The vagueness and lack of specificity in this lo-fi confession does not detract from the band's bedroom pop aesthetic, which creates an atmospheric cocoon for youthful internal meanderings - far away from the chaos and complexities of the world outside. The accompanying music video, which was directed by USC cinema student Logan Fields, memorably represents the song's focus on romantic dysfunction with a young man who collects mannequin body parts from the beach to compose a plastic substitute for his ideal lover.
