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The label's distinctive aesthetic draws on outdated and esoteric British cultural sources from the postwar period, including early electronic and library music, public information films, educational resources,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. It 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 Jon Brooks.
Ghost Box have also released albums by Pye Corner Audio, Mount Vernon Arts Lab, Hintermass, The Soundcarriers and Roj.
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, Cavern of Anti-Matter, Sean O'Hagan, Steve Moore, The Listening Center and ToiToiToi.

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" with 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]

MusicianTitleFormatCatalogue Number
Belbury PolyFarmer's Angle 3" CD-EPGBX001
The Focus GroupSketches and Spells CD/LPGBX002
Belbury PolyThe Willows CD/LPGBX003
Eric ZannOuroborindra CDGBX004
The Focus GroupHey Let Loose Your Love CDGBX005
The Advisory CircleMind How You Go 3" CD-EPGBX006
Belbury PolyThe Owl's Map CD/LPGBX007
The Focus GroupWe Are All Pan's People CDGBX008
Mount Vernon Arts LabThe Séance at Hobs Lane CD/LPGBX009
The Advisory CircleOther Channels CD/LPGBX010
Belbury PolyFrom an Ancient Star CDGBX011
RojThe Transactional Dharma of Roj CDGBX012
The Advisory CircleMind How You Go CD/LPGBX013
Belbury PolyFarmer's Angle CD/10"GBX014
The Advisory CircleAs The Crow Flies CD/LPGBX015
Belbury PolyThe Belbury Tales CD/LPGBX016
Pye Corner AudioSleep Games CD/LPGBX017
The Focus GroupThe Elektrik Karousel CD/LPGBX018
John Foxx and The Belbury CircleEmpty Avenues CD/10"GBX019
The SoundcarriersEntropicalia CD/LPGBX020
The Advisory CircleFrom Out Here CD/LPGBX021
Various artistsIn a Moment... Ghost Box CD/LPGBX022
HintermassThe Apple Tree CD/LPGBX023
The Belbury PolyNew Ways Out CD/LPGBX024
Pye Corner AudioStasis CD/LPGBX025
The Pattern FormsPeel Away the Ivy CD/LPGBX026
ToiToiToiIm Hag CD/LPGBX027
The Focus GroupStop-Motion Happening with The Focus Groop CD/LPGBX028
The Belbury CircleOutward Journeys CD/LP/Cass.GBX029
Beautify JunkyardsThe Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards CD/LPGBX030
The Advisory CircleWays of Seeing CD/LPGBX031
Pye Corner AudioHollow Earth CD/LPGBX032
Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus with The Belbury PolyChanctonbury Rings CD/LPGBX033
PlonePuzzlewood CD/LPGBX034
Belbury PolyThe Gone Away CD/LPGBX035

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