Ghost Box: Haunted Electronic Folklore

The Ghost Box label began  sometime in 2004 by Jim Jepp and graphic designer Julian House to look towards the past for inspiration without sounding retro but unique and new.  Artists ie. The Advisory Circle, Eric Zann, Belbury Polly, The Focus Group and Mount Vernon Arts Lab tend to draw heavily on musique Concrete, library music, soundtracks from the 60' and 70's, found sounds, old theme songs, folk and psychedelia. None of the music sounds serious, turgid, or weighed down by academic nonsense and preciseness. Each bit of music sounds like it could acompany any  instructional film from 30 years ago.

Even with their similarites  each group and artist sounds nothing alike but share a interest in imaginary worlds, " English" Surrealism, folklore and vintage electronics. Creating tiles like " The Farmers Angle", " The Willows", " We Are All Pans People", " Mind How You Go" add to the unique and odd feelings asscociated with each release.

All covers are designed by Julian Hose and have an iconic 60' s type of collage combined with vintage Penguin paperbacks, instruction manuals and educational books for British  elementary school children. Julian has also designed album artwork for  notable music acts like Broadcast, Stereolab and Primal Scream. He has also had his artwork featured in British publication Wire. 

The Focus Group a pseudonym for Mr. House creates their tracks using tape loops and found sounds. The songs that have beat combo rhythms and  are hurky jerky affairs that often resemble  a English Negativland minus much of the social commentary and sense of humor. 

If you have any interest in early Doctor Who, Tomorrow People, 321 Contact, 70's Public Television shows especially the ones on during weekday afternoons you might have watched had you been home sick from school then the label might be for you. They are pricey an average cd can cost somewhere around $20. You can opt to buy their music on iTunes for about half that but you don't get the complete artwork and little details that make Ghost Box releases so unique.