I didn’t expect Ghost on the Stairs to hit me so physically the first time I listened to it. I knew the album was about Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), but I didn’t know that sound could simulate a kind of confusion and discomfort that felt this close to real sensory overwhelm. Meemo Comma (Lara Rix-Martin) intentionally uses clicks, distorted kicks, and uneasy loops to create a listening environment where every sound competes for attention—exactly how APD listeners often experience the world.
Tracks like “Caturday” make this tension almost bodily. The gasping, breath-like samples give the rhythm a feeling of panic, like the track itself is struggling to inhale. In “Depersonalization,” there’s a layering cello drone with layering clicks—no melody, no relief—just the pressure of constant sonic information. It reminded me of a moment on a London bus where I was near Bedford Street, wearing noise-cancelling headphones, and suddenly I heard this unbelievably heavy low frequency. I paused my music and it was still there. The drone was so overpowering I couldn’t hear anything else around me. Immediately, I thought of this album of the way it collapses internal and external noise into one overwhelming layer.
What surprised me most is that this album finally helped me understand the difference between sound art and music production in a way I had never felt before. I’ve listened to score-based works and field recording pieces before, but they never resonated so strongly. On the other hand, many underground or niche electronic tracks online feel too polished, too structured—still too close to the logic of commercial music. Ghost on the Stairs sits exactly in the middle with the expression of the way how APD cope with the world while the listenability is somehow works as a medium.
According to the album notes, Rix-Martin explores rhythm by focusing on what isn’t there—the negative space between beats. She merges speech and voice into something alien, blurring every boundary until language becomes texture and texture becomes noise. The drones feel both meditative and claustrophobic, flickering between numbness and anxiety, just like the shifting states she describes in APD.
It’s inspiring to be realising that sound can hold confusion, tension, fear, and vulnerability, not just harmony or rhythm. Ghost on the Stairs made me rethink how I listen, but also what kind of listening I’ve been avoiding. It’s unsettling, but maybe that’s exactly why it matters.