He thought hopelessly: I am damned already — I may as well go the whole length of my chain… But with open mouth (the time had come) he made one last attempt at prayer, ‘O God, I offer up my damnation to you. Take it. Use it for them,’ and was aware of the pale papery taste of an eternal sentence on the tongue. — Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter

In The Heart of the Matter, Major Henry Scobie engages in an affair with a much younger survivor of a sunken ship, a grave offense but not a high crime or misdemeanor. Attempting to confess without contrition, he is denied absolution. Later, taking communion with the sin still on his ledger, Scobie consigns himself to a state of dreadful torment as his body embraces the wafer. Overcome with shame and guilt, and entangled in a financial and moral morass, Scobie opts for suicide; he’s already going to Hell, what’s one more mortal sin between friends? In for a penny, in for a pound.

Most religions come with a long list of shalts and shalt nots. If your religion is do whatever the heck you want, then… well, what’s the point? Doing the shalt nots or not doing the shalts can carry consequences ranging from a fiery future up to a remorseful present. Tyler John’s ‘Insignificant Ghosts’ is the cry of a soul who has, like Major Scobie, run afoul of a shalt not. Guilt and Shame, the typical attendees at these dinner parties, are joined by Anger to foment an unholy emotional trinity.

Howl out your name
You writhe in lust
In a snare of our own disgrace
If only to unearth the fair verse
To corrupt this righteous soul

‘Insignificant Ghosts’ is a densely-packed wall of confusion, a primal scream against the gods. The notes are as impenetrable as the words, with standard song structures cast aside to create a continually evolving musical conversation, a heated argument of intertwined instruments. Even at the two-minutes-ten mark, when the windows are raised for a brief breath of air, we can feel the voices rising in the flat below us, the sounds that we know will inevitably end with objects slamming against the ceiling.

Tyler John is a longtime musician, a singer-songwriter from the New Jersey side of Philadelphia. He self-describes his music as heavy and soft songs about love and landscapes. ‘Insignificant Ghosts,’ with themes centered on shame and struggles with organized religion, was created during a year spent working in Burlington, Vermont. It took shape, Tyler told me, ‘during many flights between Jersey and BVT.’

‘Insignificant Ghosts’ is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music. And be sure to follow Tyler John on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.