Ghost Box

"More or less" is doing a lot of work there. What music do you consider not worthless? Is there any worth in anything? Probably not.

did this have any impact in america at all? i didn't hear about it until The Wire put Advisory Circle at like No. 45 on a year end list in 2011. I bought and enjoyed Advisory Circle, Pye Corner Audio and Belbury Poly and was spinning the black circle like "la la la enjoying my cool little british label that no one seems to talk about" and then I open up a Simon Reynolds book with a Library of Congress call number and there's like 40 fuckin pages on how this is Britains version of hip-hop and I felt like I did when I learned Lonestar Steakhouse was a chain restaurant

the blackout crew, certain of the late beethoven quartets

It doesn't have any impact in Britain either really.

nb you will have noticed that crit theory wasnt dismissed, merely its lesser amateur practitioners

jon yeah athough in another context entirely i was going to say too much is written about the fall, the k-punk fall/lovecraft stuff is certainly towards the better end of this spectrum

how this is Britains version of hip-hop

Ahahahahahahahahaaaaa

I thought k-punk's piece on hauntological musics was quite good, in all seriousness.

I mean there are however many pages in Retromania about it doesn't really surprise me because Reynolds and his mates have been talking about it amongst themselves for years but its impact on or relevance to much of the rest of British music is virtually zero. It's a fairly isolated scene producing some excellent music but that's about it. The critical discourse around this label is largely awful and put me off actually listening to it for several years.

xpost nilmar totally, they are v over-talked-abt. that was one of the few Fall pcs that felt like it would rattle about my brain for the rest of my listening career.

you know who needs to get and love ghost box is film score nerds. I don't know if they know about it or not.

Well, I think the Julian House/Broadcast/Berberian Sound Studio crossover will make that the case soon if it isn't already.

yeah but emily that might nearly have been written for you

ghost box probably had some influence on demdike stare and that strain of olde englishes weird techno

yeah but emily that might nearly have been written for you

So, wait, does that mean you're writing me off as a lolcrit blog dilettante? Seeing as you indicate with your other posts that you think such things are laughable... Bah humbug.

while we're speaking about k-punk et al, I noticed there's a new cheap ebook of collected and augmented woebot pieces. Kind of tempted, I remember enjoying him on average more than kp.

<q> The critical discourse around this label is largely awful and put me off actually listening to it for several years.</q>

As someone whose been listening to this stuff for a year without seeing any critical discourse its like "HOLMES YOU DID NOT KNOW IT WAS A CAN OF DOG FOOD"

I don't think the hip hop thing is such a stretch. A year ago I had the idea of writing a blog post discussing Stereolab and Broadcast's sonic references/appropriation/thievery in the context of hip hop. Makes total sense.

I like most of this stuff, though only had the slightest idea of the aesthetic, being american and whatnot. But there are hazy memories of the 70s/early 80s that I have that aren't that different. Or maybe I just watched a lot of Dr. Who and The Prisoner while growing up.

But musically, it all sounds awesome to me, it just doesn't stick with me that much. Some of it is more musique concrete, some is more library music...Pye Corner Audio is the one that sticks with me because he works it in a lo-fi italo-disco/proto-house way.

And Broadcast is my favorite band of their era, no matter what they were ripping off at any given time.

Whiney I know you're partly playing it up for LOLs but this isn't actually going to ruin this stuff for you is it?

yeah i think some of my fairly mild scorn for these dudes itt was precipitated by seeing that woebot has repackaged his defunct blog into an ebook

i don't think it's even chutzpah so much as an english arts and crafty enamourment for careful artisanal labour, rather like the dude who carves spoons all day in hackney he wants to get paid in full (if only retroactively)

I dunno, I just like reading things on a dedicated reader more than I like reading them on blogs where the rest of infinity is constantly beckoning me to click away.

maybe he just wants to get paid?

yeah but he is a shitty writer and doesn't deserve to

ouch. regardless, not that big a deal that someone, anywhere, should publish an ebook. it's convenient. he's not going to retire from it.

if he needs to pay the rent then i might feel obliged to send him twenty quid for introducing me to some fine music when i was like 19, but reading that interview of him on (iirc) the quietus i was reminded of his precious cultural dirigism and those tendentious thinkpieces about musical history

the troubled ghosts of former ilxor NRQ haunts my posts itt like the fragments of the incredible string band limning their way throughout the work of skepta

Whiney I know you're partly playing it up for LOLs but this isn't actually going to ruin this stuff for you is it?

― ~farben~ (Jon Lewis), Thursday, January 10, 2013 6:26 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah, I still love this stuff

reverse is also true, btw - ie there are plenty of uk telly genre-nerds who consume Children of the Stones and The Owl Service for breakfast, know every episode of Kinvig off by heart, but who wldn't touch the Ghost Box stuff w/ a fifty foot maypole

also think Electric Eden by Rob Young was a more important bk, in the UK at least, for popularising this idea of olde weird britain and a wider idea of what constitutes trad/folk music than the Simon Reynolds volume

Woebot's 70s ebook was a lot of fun. Wish it were longer.

reverse is also true, btw - ie there are plenty of uk telly genre-nerds who consume Children of the Stones and The Owl Service for breakfast, know every episode of Kinvig off by heart, but who wldn't touch the Ghost Box stuff w/ a fifty foot maypole

This. I tried a couple and even though they should be right up my street I just couldn't get into them at all. (For reference, they were Seance at Hob's Lane, We Are All Pan's People and The Owl's Map - feel free to point out they're unrepresentative and/or rubbish and I'm missing out.)

I really like the first Belbury Poly album, The Willows. Also check out the Broadcast/Focus Group collab.

so, thoughts on the new focus group lp anyone?

On very first listen this morning I liked it very much. I went straight onto the GB site and bought the vinyl. I like the sound of it a lot; kinda medieval stuff going on. Reminds me a little of Matmos's The Civil War. Intriguing.

https://soundcloud.com/cafekaput/applied-music-vol-1-science

The new Soundcarriers album is out today on Ghost Box. Downloaded it (purchased), but waiting for the vinyl to arrive. Love that band, so I have high hopes.

the "alternative" version of the release on GPS last year sounds tremendous so i'm v much looking forward to hearing this

The Soundcarriers record is awesome.

And this will also be awesome:

http://cafekaput.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/ghost-box-other-voices-01-brooks-ohagan.html

Back in the mists of time (we're talking probably 14 years ago) I 'creatively re-appropriated' a snippet of a High Llamas song into one of my own tunes. Wanting to do the honourable thing, I contacted Sean O'Hagan and played him what I'd done. I remember him being quite pleased about the whole thing and we stayed in touch, often talking about making a record together. Of course, these things always take time.

Fast-forward to now and here we are, kicking off a new series of singles on Ghost Box. It's available to pre-order now, at the Ghost Box shop.

always interested when Sean O'Hagan is involved in a music project

The clip could easily just be a new High Llamas song.

How's the new Advisory Circle?

Very good, more of the usual but a bit more sinister and space-y

i heard several reports to the effect jon brook's 52 is his best so far. hoping this one will make for a spooky christmas.

really liked the pye corner black mill 3-4 from earlier in the year.

Brooks' Shapwick and 52 are both terrific. Great to see the former once again available, now as a digital download on Bandcamp.

Ridiculous question but what would be a good "Ghost Box-y" present that wasn't actually a Ghost Box product?

^try something by Concretism:

https://soundcloud.com/concretism (some tracks streaming here are on his LP, 'Town Planning')

http://concretism.bandcamp.com (older stuff)

Artemiev's score for Solaris might be worth a listen. It was reissued this year. Not a million miles away.

Thanks both.

I was thinking of something non-musical - a book, a picture or something - to go with an already bought Ghost Box CD, as a vaguely themed present.

Blu-Ray of Berbarian Sound?

DVD of Look Around You?

Oh, if a book, then Discovering Scarfolk obv - http://scarfolk.blogspot.co.uk

What about the book "Discovering Scarfolk" by Richard Littler?

How abt dvds of children of the stones or something?

I'd meant to come on here to *wonder* about Scarfolk. How is it regarded in the world of Ghost Box et al? I saw it in a bookshop and my immediate thought was "I didn't know there was a Ghost Box book" and when I realised it wasn't Ghost Box felt a bit weird towards it. The website does amuse me, though.