Ghost Box Records


Ghost Box is an independent, UK-based electronic music record label, launched in 2004 by graphic designer Julian House and producer Jim Jupp. Its roster includes artists such as Jupp's Belbury Poly, House's The Focus Group, and the Advisory Circle, as well as releases by Broadcast and John Foxx among others.
The label's distinctive aesthetic draws on outdated and esoteric British cultural sources from the postwar period, including early electronic and library music, public information films, educational resources, occult stories, and BBC science-fiction programs. Ghost Box consequently became associated with the 2000s music trend known as hauntology.

Background

Ghost Box was established in London in 2004 by producer Jim Jupp and music industry graphic designer Julian House. The label was formally launched on January 10, 2005, and was originally created as an outlet for their own musical experiments, with the idea that each release’s packaging would display a similar design sensibility and allude to a shared imaginary landscape; a very British parallel world of public information films and TV soundtracks, cosmic horror stories, vintage library music and antique synthesisers, folk song, educational programmes, English psychedelia, occult stories and folklore.
Jupp and House have described the label as existing in an imagined or misremembered past. Influenced by school textbooks and the rigid design grid of Penguin and Pelican paperback books, Ghost Box records and CDs were always intended to look and sound like artefacts from a parallel world, familiar, elegant, but somehow "wrong". It’s a world outside of time where cultural references from a roughly 20-year period are happening all at once.
Their work has been described as an attempt to evoke "a nostalgia for a future that never came to pass, with a vision of a strange, alternate Britain, constituted from the reorder refuse of the postwar period."

Roster

Ghost Box’s key artists are House's own The Focus Group and Jupp’s Belbury Poly as well as The Advisory Circle, the recording name for the work of producer and longest serving Ghost Box collaborator Cate Brooks. Jupp and Brooks have collaborated together as The Belbury Circle. Ghost Box have also released albums by Pye Corner Audio, Mount Vernon Arts Lab, Hintermass, The Soundcarriers and Roj, as well as the comeback album by Plone, who are acknowledged by the label as progenitors of the Ghost Box aesthetic. Ghost Box has recently began to expand their roster to showcase artists from other countries, such as ToiToiToi from Berlin, Germany and Beautify Junkyards from Lisbon, Portugal.
There have also been releases by guest artists sometimes in collaborating with members of the regular roster over an ongoing series of Ghost Box singles. First the Study Series and more recently the ongoing Other Voices series. Guests have included include Broadcast, John Foxx, Paul Weller, Moon Wiring Club, Cavern of Anti-Matter, Sean O'Hagan, Steve Moore and The Listening Center.

Reception

Music journalists Simon Reynolds and Mark Fisher borrowed Jacques Derrida's philosophical term hauntology to describe Ghost Box's uniquely surreal visual and musical output. Boing Boing's Mark Pilkington noted Ghost Box founders "fused pop concrète, soundtrack and library music with sharp design and a swarm of esoteric pop-cultural references to create a parallel reality built upon memories of a very British past."

In reviewing Broadcast and [The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age], PopMatters called Ghost Box "ne of the most rousing cult phenomena of the past decade" having "created a career conjuring past futurisms and collectively buried fears to create music that quite literally feels like it’s in a different league, even another dimension, than other modern musicians."

Discography

[Albums]

MusicianTitleRelease DateFormatCatalogue Number
Belbury PolyFarmer's Angle10 January 2005
28 October 2022 		Mini CD-EP
CD/7" EP 		GBX001
The Focus GroupSketches and Spells10 January 2005
4 February 2011
11 November 2022 		CD
LP
CD/LP 		GBX002
Belbury PolyThe Willows10 January 2005
4 February 2011 		CD
LP 		GBX003
Eric ZannOuroborindra4 April 2005CDGBX004
The Focus GroupHey Let Loose Your Love4 April 2005CDGBX005
The Advisory CircleMind How You Go17 October 2005Mini CD-EPGBX006
Belbury PolyThe Owl's Map10 September 2006
14 July 2017 		CD
LP 		GBX007
The Focus GroupWe Are All Pan's People27 March 2007CDGBX008
Mount Vernon Arts LabThe Séance at Hobs Lane31 May 2007
12 June 2015 		CD
LP 		GBX009
The Advisory CircleOther Channels10 March 2008
12 June 2015 		CD
LP 		GBX010
Belbury PolyFrom an Ancient Star30 January 2009CDGBX011
RojThe Transactional Dharma of Roj28 September 2009CDGBX012
The Advisory CircleMind How You Go 5 March 2010CD/LPGBX013
Belbury PolyFarmer's Angle 10 September 2010CD/10"GBX014
The Advisory CircleAs the Crow Flies8 July 2011CD/LPGBX015
Belbury PolyThe Belbury Tales24 February 2012CD/LPGBX016
Pye Corner AudioSleep Games19 October 2012CD/LPGBX017
The Focus GroupThe Elektrik Karousel10 May 2013CD/LPGBX018
John Foxx and The Belbury CircleEmpty Avenues6 September 2013CD/10"GBX019
The SoundcarriersEntropicalia20 May 2014CD/LPGBX020
The Advisory CircleFrom Out Here5 December 2014CD/LPGBX021
Various artistsIn a Moment... Ghost Box9 October 2015CD/LPGBX022
HintermassThe Apple Tree18 March 2016CD/LPGBX023
The Belbury PolyNew Ways Out9 June 2016CD/LPGBX024
Pye Corner AudioStasis26 August 2016CD/LPGBX025
The Pattern FormsPeel Away the Ivy6 November 2016CD/LPGBX026
ToiToiToiIm Hag16 June 2017CD/LPGBX027
The Focus GroupStop-Motion Happening with The Focus Groop1 October 2017CD/LPGBX028
The Belbury CircleOutward Journeys12 November 2017CD/LP/CassetteGBX029
Beautify JunkyardsThe Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards9 March 2018CD/LPGBX030
The Advisory CircleWays of Seeing10 June 2018CD/LPGBX031
Pye Corner AudioHollow Earth15 February 2019CD/LPGBX032
Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus with The Belbury PolyChanctonbury Rings21 June 2019CD/LPGBX033
PlonePuzzlewood17 April 2020CD/LPGBX034
Belbury PolyThe Gone Away28 August 2020CD/LPGBX035
Beautify JunkyardsCosmorama13 January 2021CD/LPGBX036
Various ArtistsIntermission 12 August 2021CD/LPGBX037
ToiToiToiVaganten19 August 2021CD/LPGBX038
Pye Corner AudioEntangled Routes26 November 2021CD/LPGBX039
Pneumatic TubesA Letter From TreeTops25 February 2022CD/LPGBX040
Large PlantsThe Carrier22 April 2022CD/LPGBX041
The Advisory CircleFull Circle30 September 2022CD/LPGBX042
Belbury PolyThe Path4 August 2023CD/LPGBX043
Large PlantsThe Thorn17 November 2023CD/LPGBX044
Pye Corner AudioThe Endless Echo5 April 2024CD/LPGBX045
Beautify JunkyardsNova20 September 2024CD/LPGBX046

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