Behind-the-scenes footage from the recording sessions for ‘Ghost’ — the fourth in a series of albums from Devin Townsend. Also, see what he has to say about how it sounds!

Commented Devin: “[Even though] this is record No. 4 of the THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT . . . I’m recording it third, because ‘Deconstruction’ (the as-yet-unreleased third THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT album) is a nightmare technically and I wanted to make something lovely before diving into that.

“There are a number of guests on the album, but the core is me, Dave Young (keyboards), Mike St-Jean (drums) and the fabulous Kat Epple on flute. THIS IS NOT THE HEAVY ALBUM, that one is next… but they both get released simultaneously so all us misanthropes will have something to vent with before reading a National Geo to ‘Ghost’.”

According to Devin, “‘Ghost’ is the mellowest (by far) and prettiest record I’ve done so far” with a “very wonderful vibe.” It will be released with “the shitstorm that is ‘Deconstruction’ simultaneously” — possibly in early April 2011. Townsend adds, “I contacted dozens of drummers to work on ‘Deconstruction’, but the reality of the budgets became apparent very quick. [So] I chose two dudes… [Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based band drummer] Ryan Van Poederooyen [TERROR SYNDROME, THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND] for the midtempo and proggy stuff, and Dirk Verbeuren [SOILWORK, SCARVE, ABORTED] for the grind. I will be working with hopefully all the others on other albums. I need to play ‘Deconstruction’ live as well, so I chose to do it this way.”

“Honestly, at the root of it, I think humans are really terrified and I think a lot of people who really love heavy music love it because it’s a way for them to protect themselves. If you put this thing forward and are like, ‘I’m going to scare people with my music,’ then no one’s going to get to the root of the fact that maybe it’s just you that are terrified and that’s your way of protecting yourself, that’s your defense mechanism. It’s one thing to say, ‘Oh I’m mad at God,’ but maybe you’re really just mad at your father, you know? And I think that all these themes… that’s the thing that’s really interesting to me about heavy music now it’s like, yes, I love heavy music, absolutely, but, man, to think that’s the only thing that I’m able to offer and that’s the only thing that certain people are willing to accept from me…? You know, it’s not like I’m pissed off about it, but it’s kind of like — are you sure you really want to know why you really like this with the exclusion of everything else?”