Noah Gundersen - Carry the Ghost (Deluxe Edition) (2015)

"Man, in a word, has no nature; what he has is - history." - Jose Ortega

For Noah Gundersen, the past few years have brought about immense growth and change, both as an artist and as a young man grappling with issues of identity and independence. It should come as little surprise, then, that his stunning new album, Carry The Ghost, is so heavily influenced by existential philosophy. What's so striking, though, is hearing a 25-year-old articulate such weighty themes, packaging them into heartbreakingly gorgeous melodies with a plainspoken language that cuts to the quick upon first listen. Then again, Noah Gundersen has never aimed for ordinary.

Though only a little more than a year has passed since the 2014 release of Ledges, Carry The Ghost finds an older, more sophisticated Gundersen attempting the difficult work of unraveling our purpose here, searching for answers about the nature of man and the meaning of our relationships. Gundersen came to an understanding of himself as the sum of his experiences, a view he embraces as a positive one and which led him to delve into the works of existentialist writers and philosophers like Ortega. For Gundersen, the personal history that shapes each and every one of us is the titular ghost, and it's the thread that ties the entire record together.