Ghostholding by Venturing | Album Review

The debut album from this Jane Remover side project stands on the strength of their songwriting abilities and musicianship.

Unless you are deeply invested in the terminally online genre of hyperpop, the name Jane Remover might be unfamiliar to you. 

To be fair, it’s occasionally unfamiliar to them as well, as Remover has freely leapt between aliases throughout their burgeoning music career. Inspired by artists like Skrillex and Porter Robinson, they started producing in the mid-2010s under the name Dltzk, before coming out as a trans woman and adopting the name Jane Remover. Under the Jane Remover name, they’ve released two acclaimed albums firmly in the digicore and hyperpop soundscapes.

Simultaneously, they’ve also created work under a number of other stage names. From 2020 to 2022, they crafted three albums under the pseudonym Leroy, each titled Dariacore, with cover art taken from the animated series Daria. This music is even more deep-fried and terminally online than their Jane Remover work, EDM laced with numerous samples from internet culture.

On top of that, Remover sought to venture away from this highly computerized and artificial sound. With this urge brought the creation of Venturing, a fictional indie rock band with Remover at the helm. Over the past three years, Remover slowly released more and more material under the Venturing name, culminating this year with the debut Venturing LP, Ghostholding.

While I have a lot of respect for the work Remover is doing here, stepping far outside their usual box to make whatever music is in their heart, I feel torn about Ghostholding. On one hand, Remover’s talent as a songwriter is on display here, especially their ability to craft a catchy and impactful melody. On the other hand, production is a mixed bag to say the least, leaving the impression Jane doesn’t have the strongest handle on this particular style of music.

Let’s start with the album’s strong points. “Recoil,” for instance, is a fabulous piece of breezy indie rock that Remover gives some grit with their lo-fi recording strategy and cathartic yelled vocals. The song perfectly builds into a high-energy garage rock guitar solo and singalong outro that will go so hard live. I even enjoy how the song devolves in its final moments to a duet between drums and bass.

There’s also the twin ballads “Guesthouse” and “Something Has To Change,” beautifully produced slow numbers with instantly memorable melodies. Lyrically, they are two sides of the same coin. “Guesthouse” focuses on the pain of feeling deep love for someone who only loves them back when it’s convenient: 

Loving you is just another excuse to lose my mind

And I paid the price

Cleveland, I cry profusely in a hotel room

And it's been paid for two, but it's all mine

Day drinking downtown

I'll still see you tonight

You know why

I can't stay mad at you for my life.

Meanwhile, “Something Has To Change” deals with Remover’s feelings toward their lover’s other sexual interests, maybe the person responsible for their loneliness in “Guesthouse”:

Baby, the one thing I get to keep to myself

I'd share it with you but you don't wanna read my mind

And my dreams look nothing like me

And I'd pay so much money just to be hеr for a night.

Later on, there’s “Sick/Relapse,” undoubtedly the most sophisticated work on the record. They combine mechanical percussion, evoking images of medical equipment, with syrupy and sparkling lo-fi ballad production. It feels like Remover took a page from The Antlers’ Hospice, particularly the lyrics that liken a dying relationship to a terminal illness:

Do you feel small when you hold me?

I think my money's counterfeit

And I could buy you anything

If I had any time to spend.

That said, Ghostholding takes its sweet time building up to these gems. The beginning stretch of the album lacks an attention-grabbing moment to draw the listener in, and some of these songs feel shoddily constructed. “No Sleep” is the biggest offender in this regard. YouTube critic Anthony Fantano described the song as “the drums, guitars, and singing all respectively doing their own thing,” and I fully endorse his opinion.

I have similar feelings about the final stretch of the LP. “Halloween” comes across as an unstructured piece of deep-fried grunge with vaguely evocative lyrics about graves and vampires, which does little to excite me. Closing track “Sister” comes with much more detailed lyrics, but it feels like it spends the whole song building to a big climax, but instead it slowly loses steam until it peters off into nothing.

Despite being a mixed bag, Ghostholding shows Jane Remover in a new light. With all the chaotic instrumentation and digital sound effects stripped away, Venturing stands on the strength of Remover as a musician and songwriter, and it does hold up. With some time to listen and experiment, I’m excited to see if Remover comes back to this side project in the near future.

Production: 5/10

Lyrics: 7/10

Songwriting: 7/10

Overall: 6.5/10

Favorites: Guesthouse, Recoil, Sick/Relapse

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Thank you for reading! What did you think of this album? Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts and recommendations.