Ghost Ride

Ghost Ride

San Francisco’s Tim Cohen not only heads up the wonderful Fresh & Onlys, but also has side projects like Black Fiction and Window Twins. All of Cohen’s music — including his solo work — has an earthy, honest quality to it, and feels as natural and necessary as air. Black Fiction’s brand of shambling, street-smart folk-punk is both charmingly familiar and surprising, both off-kilter and utterly perfect. Songs like “Great Mystery” and “Magic Hands” sway and bubble with tambourines, acoustic guitars and jingling bells, while other tracks, like “Black Fiction” and “You Can Find Me,” are nearly naked but for a percolating synth line or finger snaps, paired with nominal percussion or melodica.  On the wobbly “There Is A Light,” strained vocals “sing” over gently strummed guitars that underlie a militant drum beat and odd keyboard bits that seem misplaced at first, but are completely at home by song’s end. “I Spread the Disease” sounds like a cassette demo of an aspiring soul singer from the ‘70s filtered through a Beck-ian time machine, and the airy “Something Else” just sounds like ... joy.

More By Black Fiction

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada