Ghost Horse - Trojan (2019) [CD-Rip]

Sprouting from a rich humus of Latin and African polyrhythms, Ghost Horse generates a dark and mysterious ecosystem, digesting, decomposing and recombining elements of free jazz, hip hop, blues and loop music. The result is something fascinating but quietly menacing, pulsing and breathing with the visceral force of nature reclaiming abandoned structures.

The cover image was created by Evan Ross Murphy, the artist responsible for the majority of Hobby Horse's cover art over the last decade. The base of the collage is a photo of Sitting Bull, political and military leader of the Lakota (Sioux) people at the center of the Sioux and Cheyenne's attempts to resist white settlement of the American West. After years of exile and skirmish warfare, his decimated group was forced into surrender and relocated to a reservation. Subsequently, fear that he would lend his support to the fledgling 'Ghost Dance' movement led to an order for his arrest. During the arrest attempt, fighting broke out, and Sitting Bull was shot and killed by police in 1890.

Sitting Bull's face is masked by an image of the original face of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French which would go on to become one of the most recognized symbols of the United States of America. The statue was erected 1886 on Liberty Island facing towards the Atlantic Ocean, and beyond it, Europe. Starting in 1892, two years after the death of Sitting Bull, millions of European immigrants would pass under its gaze en route to Ellis Island, principal entry point for those in search of a new life in the New World. Many of these immigrants would go on to populate the newly pacified American West. The title of the statue is 'Liberty Enlightening the World'.

Ghost Horse was founded during a residency in 2017 supported by Novara Jazz. Trojan was recorded in May 2018 during a residency supported by Correggio Jazz.