Ghostpoet
'Some Say I So i Say Light'
CD (Digipak)
Brand New and Factory Sealed
**See Picture for Track Listing**
Two years on from the release of his Mercury nominated debut,
‘Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam’, Ghostpoets sophomore album
is ‘Some Say I So I Say Light’.
Obaro Ejimiwe, aka Ghostpoet,
laughs when he remembers how Gilles Peterson “took a risk on a random
maverick” back in 2010 by signing him to the Radio 1 DJ’s Brownswood
imprint. Within a year, that risk paid off: Ghostpoet’s debut album,
‘Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam’, marked him out as one of the
most distinct, uncategorisable and forward-thinking voices to emerge in
British music this decade, and it was rewarded with a surprise Mercury
Prize nomination in 2011.
Two years on, having moved on from
Brownswood to Play It Again Sam, Ghostpoet’s creativity has blossomed
even more. On his second album, ‘Some Say I So I Say Light’, he pushes
even further in all directions than on ‘Peanut Butter Blues…’, mixing
the abstract and the concrete with uncanny skill. Industrial beats,
sonorous piano lines and hyper-detailed ornamentation provide a backdrop
for an artist who sounds ever more like a man old before his time.
Ghostpoet attributes the album’s experimental bent to the change in his
recording situation. Whereas ‘Peanut Butter Blues’ was entirely
self-produced on a computer in Ghostpoet’s bedroom, ‘Some Say I So I Say
Light’ is a studio-based work co-produced with the talented Richard
Formby (Wild Beasts, Darkstar, Egyptian Hip-Hop).
One of the key
upbeat cuts is the album opener, ‘Cold Win’, which Ghostpoet describes
as “almost a flagpole or mast for the record”. Originally intended as an
homage to old school garage, it morphed into an electronic oddity that
builds up gradually with cinematic swells of horns, although skipping,
staccato beats remain as a hint to the track’s origins. It’s not the
only song that shapeshifts almost imperceptibly, ending up somewhere
completely different to where it started.
On ‘Dial Tones’ one
will recognize the wonderfully guarded and delicate vocals of UK
songstress Lucy Rose. ‘Dorsal Morsel’, which features Gwilym Gold on
vocals, begins as a sparse, minimal meditation that develops into what
Ghostpoet calls a ‘synth utopia’, while lyrics about spending too much
money on Amazon and Pringle packet metaphors keep it grounded in
reality. The delicacy of ‘Comatose’ winds up as glorious, string-led
chamber music.
Elsewhere, ‘Plastic Bag Brain’, which features
Tony Allen on drums and Dave Okumu from The Invisible on guitar fuses
Afro Beat guitar riffs and shuffling Two Tone rhythms. You also have the
legendary drumming talent of Charles Hayward from This Heat lending his
talent on ‘Sloth Trot’.
The disarmingly honest ‘Meltdown’ tells
the tale of one of those break-ups where both parties simply drift
apart gradually. Electronic static, radio signals and beats that crunch
like footsteps through snow form the basis for Ghostpoet’s ruminations
on dim sum and noodles on ‘MSI musmiD’, while ‘12 Deaf’ is an aqueous,
abstract soundscape.
The lyrics that come through on ‘Some Say I
So I Say Light’ are as rooted in everyday life as ever, though - from
unopened mail to takeaway meals, Ghostpoet is never less than completely
identifiable. It’s an album that positions Ghostpoet in the tradition
of modern British auteurs as interested in pushing the boundaries
sonically as expressing cathartic feelings.
1 | Cold Win |
2 | Them Waters |
3 | Dial Tones |
4 | Plastic Bag Brain |
5 | Thymethymethyme |
6 | Meltdown |
7 | Sloth Trot |
8 | Dorsal Morsel |
9 | MSI musmiD |
10 | 12 Deaf |
11 | Comatose |