Ghost Box Records
Ghost Box is an independent, UK-based electronic music 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, and the Advisory Circle, as well as releases by Broadcast and John Foxx among others.
| Ghost Box Records | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Founder | Julian House Jim Jupp |
| Genre | Electronic, library music, hauntology, psychedelia |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Official website | www |
The label's distinctive aesthetic draws on outdated and esoteric British cultural sources from the postwar period, including early electronic and library music, public information films, educational resources, occult stories, and BBC science-fiction programs. Ghost Box consequently became associated with the 2000s music trend known as hauntology.
Background
Ghost Box was established in London in 2004 by producer Jim Jupp and music industry graphic designer Julian House.[1] It 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 films and TV soundtracks, cosmic horror stories, vintage library music and antique synthesisers, folk song, educational programmes, English psychedelia, occult stories and folklore.[1]
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 books, 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.[2]
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."[3]
Roster
Ghost Box’s key artists are House's own The Focus Group and Jupp’s Belbury Poly as well as The Advisory Circle, the recording name for the work of producer and longest serving Ghost Box collaborator Jon Brooks.
Ghost Box have also released albums by Pye Corner Audio, Mount Vernon Arts Lab, Hintermass, The Soundcarriers and Roj.
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, Cavern of Anti-Matter, Sean O'Hagan, Steve Moore, The Listening Center and ToiToiToi.
Reception
Music journalists Simon Reynolds and Mark Fisher borrowed Jacques Derrida's philosophical term hauntology to describe Ghost Box's uniquely surreal visual and musical output.[4][5][6] Boing Boing'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."[7]
In reviewing Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, PopMatters called Ghost Box "[o]ne of the most rousing (oc)cult phenomena of the past decade" with 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."[8]
Discography
Albums
| Musician | Title | Format | Catalogue Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Belbury Poly | Farmer's Angle (2004) | 3" CD-EP | GBX001 |
| The Focus Group | Sketches and Spells (2004) | CD/LP | GBX002 |
| Belbury Poly | The Willows (2005) | CD/LP | GBX003 |
| Eric Zann | Ouroborindra (2005) | CD | GBX004 |
| The Focus Group | Hey Let Loose Your Love (2005) | CD | GBX005 |
| The Advisory Circle | Mind How You Go (2005) | 3" CD-EP | GBX006 |
| Belbury Poly | The Owl's Map (2006) | CD/LP | GBX007 |
| The Focus Group | We Are All Pan's People (2007) | CD | GBX008 |
| Mount Vernon Arts Lab | The Séance at Hobs Lane (2007) | CD/LP | GBX009 |
| The Advisory Circle | Other Channels (2008) | CD/LP | GBX010 |
| Belbury Poly | From an Ancient Star (2009) | CD | GBX011 |
| Roj | The Transactional Dharma of Roj (2009) | CD | GBX012 |
| The Advisory Circle | Mind How You Go (Revised Edition) (2010) | CD/LP | GBX013 |
| Belbury Poly | Farmer's Angle (Revised Edition) (2010) | CD/10" | GBX014 |
| The Advisory Circle | As The Crow Flies (2011) | CD/LP | GBX015 |
| Belbury Poly | The Belbury Tales (2012) | CD/LP | GBX016 |
| Pye Corner Audio | Sleep Games (2012) | CD/LP | GBX017 |
| The Focus Group | The Elektrik Karousel (2013) | CD/LP | GBX018 |
| John Foxx and The Belbury Circle | Empty Avenues (2013) | CD/10" | GBX019 |
| The Soundcarriers | Entropicalia (2014) | CD/LP | GBX020 |
| The Advisory Circle | From Out Here (2014) | CD/LP | GBX021 |
| Various artists | In a Moment... Ghost Box (2015) | CD/LP | GBX022 |
| Hintermass | The Apple Tree (2015) | CD/LP | GBX023 |
| The Belbury Poly | New Ways Out (2016) | CD/LP | GBX024 |
| Pye Corner Audio | Stasis (2016) | CD/LP | GBX025 |
| The Pattern Forms | Peel Away the Ivy (2016) | CD/LP | GBX026 |
| ToiToiToi | Im Hag (2017) | CD/LP | GBX027 |
| The Focus Group | Stop-Motion Happening with The Focus Groop (2017) | CD/LP | GBX028 |
| The Belbury Circle | Outward Journeys (2017) | CD/LP/Cass. | GBX029 |
| Beautify Junkyards | The Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards (2018) | CD/LP | GBX030 |
| The Advisory Circle | Ways of Seeing (2018) | CD/LP | GBX031 |
| Pye Corner Audio | Hollow Earth (2019) | CD/LP | GBX032 |
| Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus with The Belbury Poly | Chanctonbury Rings (2019) | CD/LP | GBX033 |
| Plone | Puzzlewood (2020) | CD/LP | GBX034 |
| Belbury Poly | The Gone Away (2020) | CD/LP | GBX035 |
| Beautify Junkyards | Cosmorama (2021 [Not yet released]) | ? | GBX036 |
Singles & EPs
| Musician | Title | Format | Catalogue Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Belbury Poly and Moon Wiring Club | Study Series 01: Youth and Recreation (2010) | Single | GBX701 |
| The Advisory Circle with Hong Kong in the 60s | Study Series 02: Cycles and Seasons (2010) | Single | GBX702 |
| Belbury Poly and Mordant Music | Study Series 03: Welcome to Godalming (2010) | Single | GBX703 |
| Broadcast and The Focus Group | Study Series 04: Familiar Shapes and Noises (2010) | Single | GBX704 |
| Hintermass | Study Series 05: The Open Song Book (2011) | Single | GBX705 |
| Jonny Trunk | Study Series 06: Animation and Interpretation (2011) | Single | GBX706 |
| Pye Corner Audio with The Advisory Circle | Study Series 07: Autumnal Activities (2011) | Single | GBX707 |
| Belbury Poly and The Advisory Circle | Study Series 08: Inversions (2012) | Single | GBX708 |
| Listening Center with Pye Corner Audio | Study Series 09: Projections (2013) | Single | GBX709 |
| Belbury Poly and Spacedog | Study Series 10: Message and Method (2013) | Single | GBX710 |
| Brooks and O'Hagan | Other Voices 01: Calibair/ Mulcair (2014) | Single | GBX711 |
| Listening Center | Other Voices 02: Quotidian Forgotten/ Our Material (2014) | Single | GBX712 |
| The Pattern Forms | Other Voices 03: Fluchtwege/ The Sacrifice (2015) | Single | GBX713 |
| Steve Moore | Other Voices 04: The Moon Occults Saturn At Dawn/ Val Sans Retour (2015) | Single | GBX714 |
| Pye Corner Audio with Belbury Poly | Other Voices 05: Machines are Obsolete/ Pathways (2015) | Single | GBX715 |
| Cavern of Anti-Matter | Other Voices 06: Pulsing River Velvet Phase/ Phototones (2015) | Single | GBX716 |
| ToiToiToi | Other Voices 07: Odin's Jungle/ Golden Green (2015) | Single | GBX717 |
| Beautify Junkyards | Other Voices 08: Constant Flux/ Pirâmide (2016) | Single | GBX718 |
| Belbury Poly & Moon Wiring Club | Other Voices 09: The Music Room/ Moonling (2017) | Single | GBX719 |
| Sharron Kraus with Belbury Poly | Other Voices 10: Something Out of Nothing/Something Out of Nothing (Belbury Poly Mix) (2019) | Single | GBX720 |
| Paul Weller | In Another Room (2020) | EP | GBX721 |
Download only label sampler album
| Title | Work | Catalogue Number |
|---|---|---|
| Various artists | Ritual and Education (2008) | GBXSAMP01 |
| Various artists | Intermission (2020) | MSFGBXD008 |
References
- Reynolds, Simon. "Haunted Audio a/k/a SOCIETY OF THE SPECTRAL: Ghost Box, Mordant Music and Hauntology". The Wire. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
- Interview: Belbury Poly, FACT magazine
- Whiteley, Sheila; Rambarran, Shara (22 January 2016). The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality. Oxford University Press. p. 412.
- Reynolds, Simon. "Hauntology: Ghost Box label profile, Frieze magazine October 2005". Reynoldsretro. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
- Society of the spectral Archived 23 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Wire no. 276, November 2006
- Interview with Jim Jupp 2017, Diabolique Magazine
- Mark Pilkington (12 October 2012). "Hauntologists mine the past for music's future - Boing Boing". Boing Boing. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
- Gabriele, Timothy (12 November 2009). "Broadcast and the Focus Group: Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age - PopMatters". PopMatters. Retrieved 6 August 2014.