| Ghost Box Music | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2004 |
| Founder | Julian House Jim Jupp |
| Genre | Electronic Ambient Musique concrète Library music Hauntology |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Official Website | Ghost Box Music |
Ghost Box Music is an English independent record label, established in 2004 by Julian House and Jim Jupp.
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The concept for the label was hatched by House and Jupp (who attended the same school[1] ) in 2003; a manifesto of influences was compiled, which included "music for schools, cosmic horror stories, library music, English surrealism, and the dark side of psychedelia". In 2004, the first The Focus Group and Belbury Poly releases became available on CD-R. House and Jupp have stated the purpose of the label was to create "not just a record label, but an imaginary world".[2]
In an interview with Cyclic Defrost, Jim Jupp commented;
| “ | Part of a theme that’s ongoing in all the Belbury Poly records, and I think all of the Ghost Box records (...) is a tradition of British science fiction, where you’ve got on the one hand the setting of a very traditional background, with very ancient things, but you’ve got this weird, cosmic stuff happening at the same time. A lot of old British sci-fi books – John Wyndham, for instance – have these really mundane, quaint little village settings, but all of a sudden something really freaky and cosmic appears in the middle of it.[1] | ” |
Ghost Box had a defined aesthetic from formation; Julian House commenting:
| “ | ...the best way to put our stuff out was to start a label.. There was such a richness to the references we both shared, not just musical.. It made sense that we could put releases out which had this complete world attached to them.. A set of things united by a design identity, fragments of real or imagined books, collections of images, films, links... Something people can become lost in and want to be a part of.."[3] | ” |
Releases on the label (presently encompassing The Focus Group, Eric Zann, Belbury Poly, Roj and The Advisory Circle, and a rerelease of a Mount Vernon Arts Lab album) tend to share a common design aesthetic - all record covers so far have been by Julian House, with an acknowledged debt to the iconic design of sixties Penguin Books paperbacks[4]. There are shared elements in sound, too; Ghost Box artists tend to draw heavily on influences such as musique concrète, library music, and 1970s soundtracks. Several critics have noticed a melancholic or nostalgic element to the Ghost Box sound as well, prompting comparison to the shorter, 'interlude' tracks of Boards of Canada, or similar folk or psychedelia-influenced electronic musicians.
Seven Inch Singles
Download only label sampler album
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