Ghost

Ghost is the first studio album debut by American Record Producer Link Makenshi, released on April 4th, 2020. The Album was released independently as he did not hear back from any record labels with whom he wanted to release the album with. Although the most recurring musical style is Riddim, the Album features many musical styles and genres such as Dubstep,Trap, EDM, Dark Ambiance and lots of less popular genres like Witchhouse, Tearout, Minitory and breakbeat.

Ghost
Ghost Album Cover By Link Makenshi
📅 Released	2020/04/04
🤑 Producer	Link Makenshi
Link Makenshi chronology
Towers of Darkness Ghost Heartless

Buy this album Ghost or listen to it on amazon

Background

I began producing chiptunes at age fourteen using a program called Famitracker. It wasn't until the end of 2010 that his interest in producing music sparked up again when I discovered a DAW called LMMS.

LMMS was my first DAW, and at the time I remember I was trying to learn how to use a DAW and create music, but LMMS was so buggy, I quickly realized I needed to look for an alternative. The first DAW I stumbled across was FL studio and it kinda looked like LMMS, and people said it was easy to use, so I just went for it.

My early musical style was extremely bright and happy. I made a lot of upbeat music in my early days, then when I discovered Dubstep, I began making a more upbeat a melodic variant known as Drumstep. I eventually settled on making Trap beats since I really loved bass, and once I found out how to sell beats online, I unofficially became a ghost producer.

I continued to sell trap beats online while honing in on my production skills, Eventually making enough money to quite my job and work full time as a ghost producer. I had always stuck with making melodic stuff for my own projects, just because that's who I am as a person, and I knew I wanted to eventually release music under my own name. Unfortunately I was having no luck getting any of my melodic songs signed, as every record label I tried to get in touch with either shot me down or just straight up ignored me. All this neglect from the labels started to take its toll on me and I ended up deleting everything I had ever posted online. Meanwhile, at this point in time, melodic Dubstep and Drumstep were staring to be phased out of the scene in favor of a much heavier darker genre known as Riddim, and I thought that this would be a good direction for me to go. At first though, I refused to give up my melodic elements. So I instead traded them in for a more sadder and depressed kind of sound. "Revenge of The Dead" was the first of these new kind of songs, and it would be this song that sparked the idea to create Ghost.

Revenge of The Dead

So there I was one day, sitting at my laptop, working on music, and I don't remember why but I was in a really sad mood. FL was probably crashing again as usual and that was just another thing to deal with while still worrying about being sighed to a record label and getting my music out there somehow. At least on the up side I was having good luck in creating a new song, I strung together this sequence of four chords and it perfectly reflected my sad mood that day. I then looped them and hit record (to midi in the piano roll) and played out this melody over the chords using the keys on my laptop. This of course didn't turn out to perfect so I opened up the piano roll and started arranging the notes and I came up with this really sad yet really hopeful melody, and it was just spot on to everything I was feeling at the time.

Despite making progress on a new song, I was just feeling really down that day and my wife and son where not home at that moment so I didn't even have anyone to talk to, so feeling completely sorry for myself, I decided to get up and go look out the window to try and clear my mind. This actually didn't help much as the view I was expecting to gaze upon had been blocked by some dark, mean looking thunder clouds. I stood there for a few minutes, soaking in my own self doubt as the rain began to pour down until I suddenly realized that I didn't really have that much of a reason to be sad. The song that I was working on was a new sound that might really be worth pursuing and developing even further. I stood there a bit longer pondering the thought of what direction I could go with this new song. This could defiantly be something, I could create a full album and the theme could be based of off my darker, deeper emotions. I could make more sad, depressing melody's and then have these really heavy drops.

I kept thinking about how I wanted the Album to sound before I was like, wait a minute, what will I even call his Album. Ghost was literally the first word that popped into my head, and I was super quick to dismiss it. I thought that Ghost was probably the most generic album/song tittle in existence. Then I thought, Well actually, its generic yes, but this name also can have a lot of meanings, not only have I been ghost producing over the years but now I cant even get my own music out there and I am actually feeling like a ghost in the sense that no one knows who I am and even when I try to reach out to people I remain completely invisible as if I'm not even there. The more I thought about it the more this name started to take on deeper meaning and I soon felt a deep connection to it.

The song title came from an unfinished book I had started writing years prior. I figured since I was (probably) never going to finish that book then I might as well put the tittle to good use.

Album artwork

The cover is a heavily edited picture I took from our apartment window.

Revenge of the Dead Music Video

I shot a ton of footage for the original video. but during editing I realized that it wasn't enough to fit the length of the song, and I ended up repeating a lot of shots. Unhappy with this cut, I decided to put it on the back burner. A couple years later I decided this video would work better as a song for my side project 4th day glitch.

Production

Most of the songs on Ghost where produced in FL Studio, Which was my first (real) DAW. I haves since switched over to Ableton, but I have so many songs to finish in FL, I just feel like I can never escape that DAW, no matter how much I really want to.

Remaining independent

I stopped sending out songs to record labels because every time I sent out a song I felt really vulnerable and every time I get rejected I took it very personally and it did nothing other than hurt my well being.

On top of that, I had this really bad experience where I sent out "Revenge of the Dead" off to this one label, and it wasn't a big label or anything, they barley had any social media presence, but they email me back saying they wanted to release the song, and in the contract they wanted like 60 percent of my royalties and it's doubtful they would have even promoted me in any way shape or form, and then to add insult to injury, they send me this generic album artwork that they clearly just ripped off of google images and stuck there record label name right front and center, completely ignorant to the fact that I had made my own album cover. In the end, I decided to decline there generous offer to exploit my hard work, and even though this was a bad experience, it taught me an important lesson, and I think at this time its best right now just to continue focusing on my music and releasing all my music myself as an independent artist.

Album Length

Everything about this Album plays into the tittle, including the number of tracks on the Album. The idea here is that a ghost is something otherworldly, something we cant comprehend, something bigger than us. So playing off this idea I wanted to make an Album that was larger than life, and release a ridiculous number of songs on it. I'm thinking a couple of hundred at least. Maybe over a thousand. Realistically, this could take a very long time, especially considering the fact that I've become a perfectionist and I absolutely refuse to release any song that isn't a perfect mix and master. The way I look at it though, is that even if it does take a long time to release every song that will go on Ghost, this still works out fine because the listener can hear my evolution threw years worth of songs all contributing to one overarching theme.

Demo Versions

Some song went threw significant changes during production, including reworked drops and different arrangements.

Song Title	Render Date	version difference	Download
Abandoned in the Mist	Saturday, ‎July ‎4, ‎2020, ‏‎1:56:47 PM	Pre-mix, Pre-Master, Different Drop
Revenge of the Dead	‎Saturday, ‎July ‎4, ‎2020, ‏‎1:57:53 PM	Pre-mix, Pre-Master, Different Drop
Pail White and Completely Silent	‎Saturday, ‎July ‎4, ‎2020, ‏‎1:57:45 PM	Pre-mix, Pre-Master
Fbzrbar Vf Sbyybjvat Zr	Saturday, ‎July ‎4, ‎2020, ‏‎1:54:50 PM	Different intro, outro and arrangement

Original Track listing

No.	Title	Producer	Length	Genre	Notes
1.	Revenge of the Dead	Link Makenshi	04:48	Riddim / Dubstep
2.	Aokigahara	Link Makenshi	02:00	Riddim	Released on Onryō
3.	Doppelgänger	Link Makenshi	03:05	Riddim	Released on Onryō
4.	Pail White and Completely Silent	Link Makenshi	04:00	Tearout
5.	Russian Roulette	Link Makenshi	02:55	Dubstep
6.	Closer To You	Link Makenshi	04:04	EDM
7.	Falling From the Skyline	Link Makenshi	02:26	Melodic Ambience	Released on "Untitled Album" as 4th day glitch
8.	Abandoned in the Mist	Link Makenshi	03:34	Riddim
9.	A Black Letter Day	Link Makenshi	1:47	Minatory	Released on Onryō
10.	I WANT TO SMASH YOUR FUCKING HEAD OPEN	Link Makenshi	04:19	Minatory	Released on Onryō
11.	Delivering a Eulogy	Link Makenshi	02:05	Riddim	Released on Onryō
12.	Resting in Pieces	Link Makenshi	03:06	Riddim
13.	Fbzrbar Vf Sbyybjvat Zr	Link Makenshi	03:19	Bass House	Unreleased

Tracks That were Considered For Release on Ghost

Release Tittle	Genre	Notes	Work In Progress Video
▲ s L ɇ ɇ p // ∆ w ᗗ k Σ	Riddim / Witchhouse
A Vacant Stare
An Unearthly Presence	Dark Ambiance
Before These Gates I Kneel	Riddim / Dubstep
Chelsea Never Smiles	Tearout	Released on Onryō
Déjà vu	Riddim	Released on Onryō
For a Second, I Thought I Saw Someone Standing There
Forever Alone Complex	Future Bass
From Beneath Still Water So Deep	Downtempo
My Skin Is Burning	Riddim
I Can Feel My Soul Deteriorating
I Smell Blood in the Air	Riddim
Lay Down and Die
L̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶T̶o̶ ̶S̶e̶e̶ ̶A̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶D̶a̶y̶	Hybrid Trap		Link Makenshi - L̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶T̶o̶ ̶S̶e̶e̶ ̶A̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶ ̶D̶a̶y̶ (Work in Progress)
Pieces of You (Are Everywhere)	Riddim
Poisoning The Well
Sweet Serenity
Tearing My Guts Out	Riddim
The Mourning After	Riddim / Dubstep
They Placed a Microchip	Breakbeat
Underneath My Skin
Where Has Your Reflection Gone?	Riddim / Dubstep
While You Are Screaming	Riddim
White Feathers	Riddim
肯定会死	Future Bass / Glitch / Trap

References

Link's Music Vlog Ep. 1 - How it All Began: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDPSLVkrBCE

Link Makenshi - L̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶T̶o̶ ̶S̶e̶e̶ ̶A̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶ ̶D̶a̶y̶ (Work in Progress): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-HZUZBodsk

External links

Link Makenshi's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGSAiNCZePNaiocfxGlG2NA/videos

Link Makenshi's Bandcamp Page: https://linkmakenshi.bandcamp.com/

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