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Jean-Marc Lederman Experience - 13 Ghost Stories

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Jean-Marc Lederman Experience - 13 Ghost Stories

Dependent Records

March 2019

Jean-Marc Lederman is known from his work with bands like Fad Gadget, The The, Gene Loves Jezebel, The Weatherman, Ghost and Writer.

Jean-Marc Lederman Experience is a unique project based on a beautiful idea and in a specific concept. Jean had a question and 13 artists were invited to reply to this question. The question was:

"You can come back to earth for ONE day, as a ghost. What do you do?"

Those 13 artists had to reply to this question in a form of lyrics which would become 13 ghost melodies and songs composed, played, arranged, mixed and produced by Jean-Marc Lenderman himself. The result is this specific album. It is an amazing collection of 13 different artists / singers, singing their answers accompanied with amazing musical elements and compositions.

Each artist leaves his/her mark on this album with everyone's unique voice, tone and style. The music that completes each song is based on the history and influences of Jean-Marc Lenderman, built upon electro tunes, synths riffs but keeping a mystery all along the album and in some cases a dark mood and mysticism is obvious. Even crossing the barriers of electro / synth music and touching some other genres, making this release a beautiful soundtrack for a variety of cases, apart its real scope which is the narration of 13 ghost stories.

I was really concerned and didn't know if I would like to describe each song seperately, since this release must be seen as a whole, even if the contributors are varying and are different, in so many things. It all starts with a really clever intro which describes in unique way what we will listen to, "By the Fireside (part I)". And then comes the tripping voices of Christer Hermodsson from SPARK! in "The Dead Still Scream" and Louis Fraser with "Maybe", both bound with amazing low beat compositions and ambience. After that comes a more electro-popish track with Stefan Netschio of Beborn Beton in "Brian Wilson Stole My Prom Date".

Juliette Bossé 's voice from Rive is coming next with another emotional and really melodic track "Nuages à l'envers". "The Tallest Building In Town" is a really different and unique song with the voice of Jenna Fearon. A song with interesting musical alternations from the beginning to the end. "Nothing Shall Remain" is one of my favorites with the deep and beautiful voice of Agi Taralas, from Our Banshee. Slow beat in the beginning transforming to an electro-pop dance track in the last 1:30 minute. Elena Alice Fosi's (Kirlian Camera, Spectra Paris) unique voice is combined with a clean electro-pop rhythm in "Upset Karma".

Robotic speech in "I Am The Ghost of Your Father" (The Acapella Robotic Association). Then Yvette Winkler from Vaselyne with "The Darkest Secret" and Mark Hockings from mesh with "Ball & Chain" return to slowest beat rhythms while compositions seems to be influenced from 80s electro acts like Depeche Mode - mainly "Ball & Chain" - in their emotional tracks.

In "Last" with Natasha A Twentyone from Ambassador21 there is a mysticism throughout the music and voice. Last two tracks are "Last Woman Standing" with Alice Gift from Velvet Condom and Liste Noire and "Watch Them Dance" with Christa Jerôme and their music is obviously influenced from a variety of hearings that influenced Jean-Marc Lenderman. I would like to specifically mention the contribution of Christa Jerôme in this last track "Watch Them Dance", another one of my favorites. Christa Jerome, aka La Jerome is an exceptional artist with a deep emotional voice influenced and reminds of great soul and jazz female voices. Great addition to this album and clearly makes the difference from other related efforts, if any.

The second edition of "13 Ghost Stories" comes with additional bonus disc with the voices of Rascal Hueppe from Rotersand, Julianne Regan from All About Eve, Darrin C Huss from Psyche, Rexx Arkana from FGFC820 and Bruderschaft, JP Aston from Gene Loves Jezebel with Jay Aston and Ugly Buggs, Nicola Testa and Louise Love from Parallax. Rodney Orpheus from The Cassandra Complex, Christina Zun from Witchblade comics fame and Julianne Regan have added 3 novels.

Beautiful and unique album from Jean-Marc Lenderman that you should listen to as a whole. You can't stop listening to it since there are strong feelings and emotions in each track and from every artist individually and I was thirsty to hear what the next artist answered to Jean's question. Proceed without any hesitation. Try to answer Jean's question by yourself and then listen to what each artist have answered, You will find several similarities and connections to everyone of them.

You will listen to this album for a long time and many years in the future.