I have been pointed into the direction of Ghostbox recently by a number of people and when I finally managed to get round to visiting their site and checking out their artists, I was was ultra-frustrated that I hadn’t come across them sooner.

The label was created back in 2003 and is now host to several small outfits including Belbury Poly, The Advisory Circle and the Focus Group. The easiest way to define their sound is by by trying to image what would happen if the BBC Schools and Colleges music server became possessed and started misfiring its most secret sounds. Neither ambient or folk. or even electronic; it sort of sits somewhere in between. However, there’s the melodic flecks of the Boards of Canada style intermissions added for anchorage, which all adds to the blend. I love the way that the artists use old synth noises and hissy ‘public information film’ style vocals. It conjures up a rich world of crackly school sciences programs and sickly British television from the 1970’s.

To top it off, Ghostbox have some really interesting video work out there if you can find it. I’m also in love with their album/EP covers. You can buy any of the tracks from Bleep at a reasonable price (I recommend ‘Other channels‘ by ‘The advisory Circle’ as a good starter) or there are some generously free mp3 samples to download from their pages.

Multi-cheers to Tom Brass for the heads up on this – It would have escaped me for months if not forever otherwise.

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