I cant recall what my first Ghost Box CD was, or for that matter how I had first become aware of the music label. It might have been through the A Year in the Country blog, but it wont have been in isolation. The name began to appear on a number of the sites that I was frequenting at the time; the kinds of places where like-minded folks go to sift through the debris of lost futures past and reconstruct what might have been.
And here is the curious thing, and very much a part of the magic; I'm not especially a fan of 70's rock music but being on the Ghost Box label, it's clearly doing something more alchemical than simple imitation. It sounds like the music from an outlaw biker horror movie along the same lines as the wonderful Pyschomania (1973) It was familiar from its first listen and I begin to imagine that maybe I saw The Carrier late one Friday night on BBC 2 in the early 80's, part of a series showing old cult horror films and that this was just its soundtrack. That would explain why the music feels "known" and why I'm having flashes of horned marauding biker gangs terrorising the countryside. Unless I'm just confusing myself with the aforementioned Psychomania or perhaps the bikers of No Blade of Grass (1970). Its an evocative brew. I know there is no such lost film and yet the memories begin to coalesce.
And with all of that in mind i don't want to take away from the fact that its a great album in its own right. Unlike a lot of Ghost Box CDs that I tend to play late at night while surfing the net or writing blogs,The Carrier comes in the car with me and gets taken on road trips. It may well belong on the road. It may also be one of my favorite albums of the year so far.
For those that don't know, Ghost Box is an independent record label that has been around since 2004. Founded by Julian House and Jim Jupp, the label initially specialised in electronic music that captured the new millennium's fascination with the hauntological. But as well as the music, there is a complimentary aesthetic to the sleeve designs that referenced old penguin paperbacks, educational materials, 70s sci-fi and children's cult TV. As a consequence, each new release, tends to feel like its been pulled from an alternate past, being both new but strangely familiar, in both sound and appearance.
Currently on their 43 major release, Ghost Box's scope has since broadened from just the sounds of retro synths to now including traditional folk, psychedelic rock and occasional spoken word. The destination remains the same its just that now there are more pathways to get there.
Large Plants album; The Carrier, (GBX041) has been described in a number of varied ways from "post apocalyptic downer fuzz rock" on Bandcamp, to "folk-rock magnificence." in Shindig. All I know is that the cover art caught my eye and after listening to a couple of sample tracks, there was very little hesitation on buying this one. I needed to hear the whole album.
Which is why I felt very fortunate, just a few months later, to discover that Large Plants were one half of a Ghost Box double bill that was playing locally. Tickets were extremely reasonable, the venue was intimate and familiar from seeing mates play gigs there, and it was just too good an opportunity to miss, even if I couldn't get anyone to go with me. That said, I didn't feel alone. Had he have not died the previous October, I would have taken my good friend Mike Page along. Mike had lived just a 10 minute walk away and I chose to park in his old street and walk up the way we had done on all of our previous visits. Now Mike was sharp, intelligent and loved his science and he would have no time for the idea of an afterlife. Had I have actually drawn him back into being for a night out, he would have spent the walk there arguing himself back out of existence. But he lives in my memories now and I simply like the idea that he came along. And he loved his music as much as his science and his art and his philosophy and he would have had the best night. He would have liked Large Plants but he would have really loved Beautify Junkyards, the second band of the night. He would have been blown away by their eclectic, ethereal and tribal European synths. I know this intuitively Or maybe he just told me?! But I've gotten ahead of myself.
Arriving at The Tin in The Coal Vaults at Coventry Canal Basin, I nursed a pint of coke within the brick cavern, for an hour of Ghost Box and similar sounding records. Coloured lights rose and fell around the brickwork and an audience slowly gathered around an empty stage. It seemed like a good mix of like-minded souls; groups of friends and couples, and all generally of a similar age. The slightly younger and more interesting looking ones turned out to be the actual band members themselves but until they took to the stage, they were just part of the same crowd, summoned here by a shared love of the music and the hauntological.
Just slightly past the hour, three quarters of Large Plants took to the stage and gave it to us straight; Their drummer was sick but, having practiced the first three tracks without him, in an earlier soundcheck, they were happy to move through the set list and play around the missing percussion. And did they ever. What followed was some pretty stunning guitar playing and a live performance of the album that somehow didn't feel remotely lacking. When it was over there was a promise to come back and play again with the full line up but for me nothing had been lost.
Beautify Junkyards followed after a brief interlude and were refreshingly different but still "ghost box" in their own way. I know they would have inspired Mike to his own guitar and keyboards, because quite frankly he wouldn't have looked out of place among their number. I wasn't as familiar with their stuff prior to this but they won me over in a matter of minutes.
And so that's where we are now; I'm still playing Large Plants and waiting for that return gig. And I'm even more convinced there was one more cult biker movie made in the 70's than previously remembered. Mike still hasn't manifested, in either a white suit like Marty Hopkirk, or in his more familiar khaki but that doesn't mean that his new collection of songs isn't coming along brilliantly and that we wont be hearing them through some alternative ghost-box.
Goodnight Mike
Steve
