"We first met the Japanese band Ghost in 1995; despite any language
barriers, we understood one another immediately and soon became friends.
We have since toured together in both the U.S. and Japan, and on occasion
Ghost has joined us on stage to play our songs. After a show like this in
Tokyo in the fall of 1998, we decided to record an album together. Over the
course of the following year, we sent our new songs to Japan, and Ghost
sent back ideas for production and arrangements. They also sent music for
a new song of theirs, to which we added lyrics. Then, in the last days of 1999
and the first of 2000, Ghost came to our studio to record this album, and
celebrate the New Year, together." — Damon & Naomi, Spring 2000

Tracking Damon & Naomi with Ghost, by Byron Coley

Track One: The Mirror Phase
A stance copped from Ike and Tina’s gun battle with Phil Spector, minus the pomade and
actual aggression. Well, maybe the aggression’s there somewhere, but only if you view it
as smoke-filled reflection of overt tenderness. Batoh added the break, capturing the title
phrase’s spatial identifiers.

Track Two: The New World
An evocation of Fairport Convention visiting the most holy shrine in Japan. Batoh wrote the
music, Naomi wrote the lyrics, and the sample of chanting monks was chosen because of
its specific placement in the folds of temporal otherness.

Track Three: Judah & the Maccabees
Judah Maccabee led an uprising in ancient Israel, recapturing the Temple for the Jews.
Damon says, “The song was physically inspired by renovations to the new Exact Change
office, in the course of which we did a lot of poking into formerly closed up spaces. That
connected to something haunting I saw at the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side
— walled up spaces — and a metaphoric connection to my family's history. We're hoping
for heavy rotation on Tel Aviv soft rock radio.”

Track Four: Blue Moon
This Alex Chilton song from the sessions for the third Big Star album has long been part of
Damon & Naomi’s live set. Ghost decided it should sound like a child’s lullaby. Ogino
played a toy glockenspiel.

Track Five: The Great Wall
The function of objects created outside of our cultural referents is always mysterious, but
Kafka postulated that The Great Wall was the first truly secure foundation for a new Tower
of Babel. The end portion of this Great Wall was designed as a secure foundation for
Kuri’s guitar “thing.”

Track Six: I Dreamed of Caucasus
Cicero once wrote of a dream in which Africanus told Scipio that his fame would never
traverse the Caucasus. Millennia later, in the frozen dream time of Werner Herzog,
we became aware that Florian Fricke was probably unfit for military service, although
Kaspar Hauser’s father was not. Go figure.

Track Seven: Don’t Forget
Jack Hirschman wrote, "I thought I saw cathedrals of fire/I thought I saw dachaus of fire."
Here, Batoh and Damon fingerpick acoustic guitar fires in tandem. Elsewhere, for the most
part, Damon was strumming and Batoh picking.

Track Eight: Tanka
The lyrics define
The tanka’s reflective form
While Kuri plays fuzz
And Ogino fuzzes keys
For Batoh’s feet to pedal

Track Nine: Eulogy to Lenny Bruce
When Tim Hardin recorded this track himself, he called it "Lenny’s Tune'. But Ghost chose
this cover, and they wanted Naomi to sing it using the approach Nico had employed when
she sang it on Chelsea Girl. Hence, the title follows hers rather than his. But, by now, you
certainly sensed that.

Nice opening, Duchamp.

— Byron Coley
Deerfield MA '00