Ghost Music are to set release their new album I Was Hoping You’d Pass By Her on the 19th of January via Arlen.
The idea behind the band was that the songs would be “ghosts” and they would create “ghost music” to resurrect and dust off old songs that they had already started. We have the premiere of ‘Strange Love’ listen to it below. Born out of an appreciation for the instantly engaging opening riff in 50s songs: its lo fi arrangement is paired with a surreptitious melody that’s laced with regret, it’s endlessly beguiling.
‘Strange Love’ was written by Lee Hall on his iPhone in about 2014. As he explains; “I totally forgot about it until I scrolled through my voice memos. It was written instantly with lyrics after a broken relationship. I remember diggin’ the old 50’s songs where the riffs start the song.”
Southend quartet Ghost Music release their evocative debut album I Was Hoping You’d Pass By Here via Arlen on 19 January. Influenced by Silver Jews, Flying Nun and K Records, they explore themes of nature, love, loss and a melancholic English romanticism embellished with beautifully spectral melodies and executed with startling subtlety.
Despite this record being their debut, the band has produced a veritable wealth of music over the past 20 years in various guises. Ghost Music revolves around the songwriting partnership of Matt Randall and Lee Hall, who had played together in the 90s with John Peel favourites Beatglider. More recently Randall has released three albums as Plantman, Closer to the Snow, Whispering Trees and To The Lighthouse. When Randall and Hall reunited to collaborate on another album together, they brought in the talents of Roy Thirlwall on bass (Melodie Group) and Leighton Jennings on drums (Dark Globes) to complete the band.
Randall explains the songwriting process; “When we were in Beatglider together and in the past we’d made a ‘thing’ out of writing long songs with a lot of changes. This time we pared it back a bit and stuck to the melodies more. We really wanted to make a proper guitar record. Lee’s my favourite guitarist and it was lovely to see him stretch out on these songs with his diamond fingers.”
