Ghost Box Records on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Ghost Box is an independent, UK-based
electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroa ...
record label, launched in
2004 by graphic designer
Julian House and producer
Jim Jupp. Its roster includes artists such as Jupp's
Belbury Poly, House's
The Focus Group
The Focus Group is a project of experimental electronic musician and graphic designer Julian House. The Focus Group's sound is a blend of influences ranging from old library music sounds produced in the 1970s, 1960s-inspired pastiches, public ...
, and
the Advisory Circle
The Advisory Circle is an alias of English electronic musician Cate Brooks (formerly known as Jon Brooks) along with King of Woolworths. Her releases as The Advisory Circle are on the Ghost Box Music label.
The Advisory Circle's first releas ...
, as well as releases by
Broadcast and
John Foxx
John Foxx (born Dennis Leigh; 26 September 1948) is an English singer, musician, artist, photographer, graphic designer, writer, teacher and lecturer. He was the original lead singer of the new wave band Ultravox, before leaving to embark on a ...
among others.
The label's distinctive aesthetic draws on outdated and esoteric British cultural sources from the
postwar period
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
, including early electronic and
library music
Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries.
Backgroun ...
,
public information film
Public information films (PIFs) are a series of government-commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks in the United Kingdom. The name is sometimes also applied, ''faute de mieux'', to similar films from other countries, ...
s, educational resources,
occult stories, and
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
science-fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
programs. Ghost Box consequently became associated with the 2000s music trend known as
hauntology
Hauntology (a portmanteau of ''haunting'' and ''ontology'') is a range of ideas referring to the return or persistence of elements from the social or cultural past, as in the manner of a ghost. The term is a neologism first introduced by French ...
.
Background
Ghost Box was established in London in 2004 by producer
Jim Jupp and music industry graphic designer
Julian House.
The label was formally launched on January 10, 2005, and was originally created as an outlet for their own musical experiments, with the idea that each release’s packaging would display a similar design sensibility and allude to a shared imaginary landscape; a very British parallel world of
public information film
Public information films (PIFs) are a series of government-commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks in the United Kingdom. The name is sometimes also applied, ''faute de mieux'', to similar films from other countries, ...
s and TV soundtracks,
cosmic horror
Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named a ...
stories, vintage
library music
Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries.
Backgroun ...
and antique
synthesisers, folk song, educational programmes, English
psychedelia
Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...
, occult stories and folklore.
Jupp and House have described the label as existing in an imagined or misremembered past. Influenced by school textbooks and the rigid design grid of
Penguin and
Pelican paperback book
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, lea ...
s, Ghost Box records and CDs were always intended to look and sound like artefacts from a parallel world, familiar, elegant, but somehow "wrong". It’s a world outside of time where cultural references from a roughly 20-year period (1958-1978) are happening all at once.
Their work has been described as an attempt to evoke "a nostalgia for a future that never came to pass, with a vision of a strange, alternate Britain, constituted from the reorder refuse of the
postwar period
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
."
Roster
Ghost Box’s key artists are House's own
The Focus Group
The Focus Group is a project of experimental electronic musician and graphic designer Julian House. The Focus Group's sound is a blend of influences ranging from old library music sounds produced in the 1970s, 1960s-inspired pastiches, public ...
and Jupp’s
Belbury Poly as well as
The Advisory Circle
The Advisory Circle is an alias of English electronic musician Cate Brooks (formerly known as Jon Brooks) along with King of Woolworths. Her releases as The Advisory Circle are on the Ghost Box Music label.
The Advisory Circle's first releas ...
, the recording name for the work of producer and longest serving Ghost Box collaborator Cate Brooks. Jupp and Brooks have collaborated together as The Belbury Circle. Ghost Box have also released albums by
Pye Corner Audio,
Mount Vernon Arts Lab
Mount Vernon Arts Lab is a musical project of the Scottish musician Drew Mulholland, who has also recorded as Black Noise and N. Between 1996 and 2001, a string of EPs, singles, and albums were released. After this he continued to release mater ...
, Hintermass (formed by Brooks with former
Broadcast and Seeland member Tim Felton), The Soundcarriers and Roj (also formerly of Broadcast), as well as the comeback album by
Plone
Plone is a free and open source content management system (CMS) built on top of the Zope application server. Plone is positioned as an enterprise CMS and is commonly used for intranets and as part of the web presence of large organizations. Hi ...
, who are acknowledged by the label as progenitors of the Ghost Box style. Ghost Box has recently began to expand their roster to showcase artists from other countries, such as ToiToiToi from
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
Beautify Junkyards from
Lisbon,
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
.
There have also been releases by guest artists sometimes in collaborating with members of the regular roster over an ongoing series of Ghost Box singles. First the
Study Series (nos. 1-10) and more recently the ongoing
Other Voices series. Guests have included include Broadcast,
John Foxx
John Foxx (born Dennis Leigh; 26 September 1948) is an English singer, musician, artist, photographer, graphic designer, writer, teacher and lecturer. He was the original lead singer of the new wave band Ultravox, before leaving to embark on a ...
,
Paul Weller
Paul John Weller (born John William Weller; 25 May 1958) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Weller achieved fame with the punk rock/ new wave/mod revival band the Jam (1972–1982). He had further success with the blue-eyed soul mu ...
,
Moon Wiring Club, Cavern of Anti-Matter,
Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan (born 1959) is an Irish singer, songwriter, and arranger who leads the avant-pop band the High Llamas, which he founded in 1992. He is also known for being one half of the songwriting duo (with Cathal Coughlan) in Microdisney and ...
, Steve Moore and The Listening Center.
Reception
Music journalists
Simon Reynolds and
Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher (11 July 1968 – 13 January 2017), also known under his blogging alias k-punk, was an English writer, music critic, political and cultural theorist, philosopher, and teacher based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsm ...
borrowed
Jacques Derrida's philosophical term
hauntology
Hauntology (a portmanteau of ''haunting'' and ''ontology'') is a range of ideas referring to the return or persistence of elements from the social or cultural past, as in the manner of a ghost. The term is a neologism first introduced by French ...
to describe Ghost Box's uniquely surreal visual and musical output.
Diabolique Magazine ''Boing Boing
''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twic ...
'''s Mark Pilkington noted Ghost Box founders "fused pop concrète, soundtrack and library music with sharp design and a swarm of esoteric pop-cultural references to create a parallel reality built upon memories of a very British past."PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...
'' called ''Ghost Box'' " e of the most rousing (oc)cult phenomena of the past decade" having "created a career conjuring past futurisms and collectively buried fears to create music that quite literally feels like it’s in a different league, even another dimension, than other modern musicians."
Discography
Albums
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records col ...
Singles
Singles are people not in a committed relationship.
Singles may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''Singles'' (miniseries), a 1984 Australian television series
* ''Singles'' (1992 film), written and directed by Cameron Crowe
* ''Singles'' ...
& EPs
Download only label sampler album
References
External links
Official Ghost Box Website
{{Authority control
Electronic music record labels
Hauntology
British independent record labels