Francisco Meirino & Michael Esposito - The Ghosts of Case File 142 CD

Firework Edition Records (FER1098) 2012, Edition of 500 copies

After a slight delay due to a major fuckup of the CD manufacturing company, the ghosts of 142 have finally been brought into the light of day in all of their intended complexity. Francisco was kind enough to provide a copy to fake dimensions, thanks a lot for that! While the visual design of recent Esposito releases on Firework Edition Records (which has obviously become a pleasant home to the works of Mr. E) was done by Philip Marshall, the artwork for this CD was accomplished by Francisco Meirino. I don't know how, but in some way the art manages to perfectly reflect this overall arcane atmosphere, that encompasses this and most of the other works by Michael Esposito (and so does Philip's artwork as seen on "Ghosts of Ogilvie Station" for instance). Case File 142 is based on recordings Francisco made on site in Lausanne at a former school for anatomy and EVP researches by Michael. It's a one-piece, totalling nearly 41 minutes, a rather quiet album on the whole, compared to some of the earlier releases by both artists. There's a lot of buzzing and hissing on here, paired with very well-placed sequences of nearly complete silence, undoubtedly bearing the hallmarks of Meirino. Most of the time the EVPs are rather looming in the background, ocassionally whispering from somewhere faraway, drawing the attention to something or someone being out there, someplace here or there, far-off or even very close by. Case File 142 is a piece that needs to be listened to very closely, to ensure you don't miss the many small details that pop up repeatedly in the course of this journey. If you listen closely enough it's almost like getting a story told, and although (or precisely because) its ending is vague, you will inevitably stick to it all along the way.

Firework Edition Records