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
Founded2004
FounderJulian House
Jim Jupp
GenreElectronic, library music, hauntology, psychedelia
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Official websitewww.ghostbox.co.uk

The label's distinctive aesthetic draws on outdated and esoteric British cultural sources from the postwar period, including early electronic and library music, public information films, educational resources,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 PolyFarmer's Angle (2004)3" CD-EPGBX001
The Focus GroupSketches and Spells (2004)CD/LPGBX002
Belbury PolyThe Willows (2005)CD/LPGBX003
Eric ZannOuroborindra (2005)CDGBX004
The Focus GroupHey Let Loose Your Love (2005)CDGBX005
The Advisory CircleMind How You Go (2005)3" CD-EPGBX006
Belbury PolyThe Owl's Map (2006)CD/LPGBX007
The Focus GroupWe Are All Pan's People (2007)CDGBX008
Mount Vernon Arts LabThe Séance at Hobs Lane (2007)CD/LPGBX009
The Advisory CircleOther Channels (2008)CD/LPGBX010
Belbury PolyFrom an Ancient Star (2009)CDGBX011
RojThe Transactional Dharma of Roj (2009)CDGBX012
The Advisory CircleMind How You Go (Revised Edition) (2010)CD/LPGBX013
Belbury PolyFarmer's Angle (Revised Edition) (2010)CD/10"GBX014
The Advisory CircleAs The Crow Flies (2011)CD/LPGBX015
Belbury PolyThe Belbury Tales (2012)CD/LPGBX016
Pye Corner AudioSleep Games (2012)CD/LPGBX017
The Focus GroupThe Elektrik Karousel (2013)CD/LPGBX018
John Foxx and The Belbury CircleEmpty Avenues (2013)CD/10"GBX019
The SoundcarriersEntropicalia (2014)CD/LPGBX020
The Advisory CircleFrom Out Here (2014)CD/LPGBX021
Various artistsIn a Moment... Ghost Box (2015)CD/LPGBX022
HintermassThe Apple Tree (2015)CD/LPGBX023
The Belbury PolyNew Ways Out (2016)CD/LPGBX024
Pye Corner AudioStasis (2016)CD/LPGBX025
The Pattern FormsPeel Away the Ivy (2016)CD/LPGBX026
ToiToiToiIm Hag (2017)CD/LPGBX027
The Focus GroupStop-Motion Happening with The Focus Groop (2017)CD/LPGBX028
The Belbury CircleOutward Journeys (2017)CD/LP/Cass.GBX029
Beautify JunkyardsThe Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards (2018)CD/LPGBX030
The Advisory CircleWays of Seeing (2018)CD/LPGBX031
Pye Corner AudioHollow Earth (2019)CD/LPGBX032
Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus with The Belbury PolyChanctonbury Rings (2019)CD/LPGBX033
PlonePuzzlewood (2020)CD/LPGBX034
Belbury PolyThe Gone Away (2020)CD/LPGBX035
Beautify JunkyardsCosmorama (2021 [Not yet released])?GBX036

Singles & EPs

Musician Title Format Catalogue Number
Belbury Poly and Moon Wiring ClubStudy Series 01: Youth and Recreation (2010)SingleGBX701
The Advisory Circle with Hong Kong in the 60sStudy Series 02: Cycles and Seasons (2010)SingleGBX702
Belbury Poly and Mordant MusicStudy Series 03: Welcome to Godalming (2010)SingleGBX703
Broadcast and The Focus GroupStudy Series 04: Familiar Shapes and Noises (2010)SingleGBX704
HintermassStudy Series 05: The Open Song Book (2011)SingleGBX705
Jonny TrunkStudy Series 06: Animation and Interpretation (2011)SingleGBX706
Pye Corner Audio with The Advisory CircleStudy Series 07: Autumnal Activities (2011)SingleGBX707
Belbury Poly and The Advisory CircleStudy Series 08: Inversions (2012)SingleGBX708
Listening Center with Pye Corner AudioStudy Series 09: Projections (2013)SingleGBX709
Belbury Poly and SpacedogStudy Series 10: Message and Method (2013)SingleGBX710
Brooks and O'HaganOther Voices 01: Calibair/ Mulcair (2014)SingleGBX711
Listening CenterOther Voices 02: Quotidian Forgotten/ Our Material (2014)SingleGBX712
The Pattern FormsOther Voices 03: Fluchtwege/ The Sacrifice (2015)SingleGBX713
Steve MooreOther Voices 04: The Moon Occults Saturn At Dawn/ Val Sans Retour (2015)SingleGBX714
Pye Corner Audio with Belbury PolyOther Voices 05: Machines are Obsolete/ Pathways (2015)SingleGBX715
Cavern of Anti-MatterOther Voices 06: Pulsing River Velvet Phase/ Phototones (2015)SingleGBX716
ToiToiToiOther Voices 07: Odin's Jungle/ Golden Green (2015)SingleGBX717
Beautify JunkyardsOther Voices 08: Constant Flux/ Pirâmide (2016)SingleGBX718
Belbury Poly & Moon Wiring ClubOther Voices 09: The Music Room/ Moonling (2017)SingleGBX719
Sharron Kraus with Belbury PolyOther Voices 10: Something Out of Nothing/Something Out of Nothing (Belbury Poly Mix) (2019)SingleGBX720
Paul WellerIn Another Room (2020)EPGBX721

Download only label sampler album

Title Work Catalogue Number
Various artistsRitual and Education (2008)GBXSAMP01
Various artistsIntermission (2020)MSFGBXD008

References

  1. Reynolds, Simon. "Haunted Audio a/k/a SOCIETY OF THE SPECTRAL: Ghost Box, Mordant Music and Hauntology". The Wire. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  2. Interview: Belbury Poly, FACT magazine
  3. Whiteley, Sheila; Rambarran, Shara (22 January 2016). The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality. Oxford University Press. p. 412.
  4. Reynolds, Simon. "Hauntology: Ghost Box label profile, Frieze magazine October 2005". Reynoldsretro. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  5. Society of the spectral Archived 23 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Wire no. 276, November 2006
  6. Interview with Jim Jupp 2017, Diabolique Magazine
  7. Mark Pilkington (12 October 2012). "Hauntologists mine the past for music's future - Boing Boing". Boing Boing. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  8. Gabriele, Timothy (12 November 2009). "Broadcast and the Focus Group: Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age - PopMatters". PopMatters. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
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