THE BELBURY PARISH MAGAZINE HAS MOVED

The Belbury Parish magazine has now moved onto the home page of the all new Ghost Box website.

From now on you can follow Ghost Box and related news from there or on our  Facebook page or on Twitter.

RADIO BELBURY 16: THE PATTERN FORMS MIX

A guest mix for Radio Belbury by Jon Brooks and Ed Macfarlane of The Pattern Forms.

Peel Away the Ivy by The Pattern Forms is out 21st October on LP,CD and Download. 

Pre-order from the Ghost Box shop right now.

THE PATTERN FORMS PR-ORDERS OPEN TODAY PLUS ROUGH TRADE IN STORE GIG & EXCLUSIVE COLOUR VINYL

Pre-orders are open today in the Ghost Box shop for the new album Peel Away the Ivy by The Pattern Forms.

To launch the release of , there'll be a live in-store performance at Rough Trade East, London,  on 21st October by The Pattern Forms and a DJ set from Ghost Box sleeve designer, Julian House (also the man behind The Focus Group).

There'll also be a limited edition of 300 translucent green vinyl LPs with alternate sleeve art exclusive to Rough Trade stores worldwide (including on line).

It'll be 6:00 to 8:00pm and PLEASE NOTE this is a ticketed event . Wristbands are only available from Rough Trade with CD, LP or Colour Vinyl LP pre-orders or purchases on the day.

See here for full details:
https://www.roughtrade.com/events/the-pattern-forms

PEEL AWAY THE IVY by THE PATTERN FORMS OUT 21st OCTOBER

The debut album from The Pattern Forms, a collaborative project between Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson of Friendly Fires and Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle, is due out 21st October 

Following on from the Other Voices 03 single in 2015, this is an album that perfectly melds blissful pop with more exploratory electronics, its roots lying in the artists' shared love of soundtracks and electronic library music of the 70s and 80s. It should appeal to fans of both bands.



On DL, CD, and heavyweight LP, with luxurious packaging designed by Julian House. There'll also be a special coloured vinyl version exclusive to Rough Trade Records. Pre-orders will open early October.

Edd Gibson and Ed Macfarlane (Jon Brooks is Elsewhere)

More news on this here and on our other channels soon.

n CD, LP and DL.

STASIS RE-PRESS

Pye Corner Audio's Stasis was a runaway success and the vinyl version sold out on the day of release. We are re-pressing this but vinyl lead times mean that it won't be available until November. It'll be a small run available exclusively from the Ghost Box shop. It'll be sold first come first serve with no pre-orders so watch here, sign up for our newsletter or follow our Facebook page for news on this.

  

Until then we'd urge you not to pay the artificially inflated second hand prices. The CD is still available here and in better record stores worldwide. 

PYE CORNER AUDIO, STASIS, OUT TODAY

The new LP from Pye Corner Audio is out today. Available in the Ghost Box shop on LP, CD and DL.

"Rather than make up his own movies, Jenkins is happy to play the movies that are already running in our heads - and we are happy to let him do it. Every track shows the confidence of someone who knows exactly which buttons to push and when."
The Wire

Most of the LP copies have already sold in pre-orders and we expect the remaining few in stock to sell out very quickly so please hurry if you want vinyl.

PEEL AWAY THE IVY, THIS OCTOBER

The new album from The Pattern Forms, "Peel Away the Ivy" comes out on 21st October. There'll be clips and some special news about this later this week, here and on our other channels.

PRE-ORDERS FOR PYE CORNER AUDIO'S STASIS OPEN TODAY

Out on 26th August and available to preorder now at the Ghost Box Shop. Lavish CD and LP packaging designed by Julian House. The LP is on heavyweight vinyl and includes free download card.

GHOST BOX AT GREEN MAN

Lower case DJing from Julian House (The Focus group) and Jim Jupp (Belbury Poly)  at The Babbling Tongues stage at The Green Man Festival on Saturday afternoon (1:15pm after Bob Stanley's pop quiz). 

Ghost Box music & sounds, library music, soundtracks, voices, effects, hocusing, broken biscuits, and verb exp. New time hopping film backdrops too.

PLAINT OF LAPWING, ALASDAIR ROBERTS & JAMES GREEN, IN THE GHOST BOX GUEST SHOP

Available today in the Ghost Box guest shop, this remarkable collaborative LP by Alasdair Roberts and James Green (of Big Eyes Family Players ), on Clay Pipe Records. The passionate syncretism of Roberts' own songs and those he selects coupled with Green's varied and unusual instrumentation, is at times reminiscent of The Incredible String band. But rather than the fey and whimsical there's a more visceral variety of mysticism at work here. This is a thing of rare and uplifting beauty.

Alasdair Roberts explains how Plaint of Lapwing came about:

Mayday 2012: an email from James Green in Sheffield reached me in Glasgow. I knew James a little – not particularly well; we had met a few times over the years and had collaborated a little too (I'd sung on a couple of songs on the album Folk Songs 2 by his group The Big Eyes Family Players). I understood that he played the harmoniflute, an instrument somewhere between a harmonium and an accordion, and seemed very enamoured of it. His email read: “had an idea about approaching you with... an ep or few songs (trad or otherwise) accompanied by my harmoniflute, and nothing else... just an idea once the dust has settled, maybe...”

The dust was not long in the swirling before coming to rest upon both of our past endeavours, and shortly we set to work on the project which became Plaint of Lapwing. My initial thought was to concentrate on just four pieces – I'd just recorded the Drag City LP/CD A Wonder Working Stone and had some songs left over from that. In a process which James was later to characterise as 'surreal', I started emailing him recordings of my disembodied voice; in response I would eagerly await, tracks featuring aforesaid voice with James' harmoniflute accompaniment.


The project gradually, almost imperceptibly, developed in scope and complexity over two years. I began sending James more vocal takes as well as other sonics I'd generated, for a variety of original compositions and some by other authors (including a song by the Perthshire folklorist Hamish Henderson, an arrangement by Benjamin Britten of a piece by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, a lyric by beekeeping Cornish film maker Timothy Neat and a setting of a work by the Angus poet Violet Jacob). James in turn increased his instrumental palette to include drums, guitars and all other kinds of musical things.

The absolutely stunning sleeve art and design is by label owner, Frances Castle and as always with Clay Pipe records it's a beautiful and high quality package. It includes a free download code and
detailed sleeve notes by Alasdair Roberts himself on the background to each song. 

The guest shop will be carrying the red version of the album sleeve - limited to only 500 copies.

PYE CORNER AUDIO - STASIS 26th August

FRACTURES

Fractures is the follow up compilation album to The Quietened Village from Blog and CDr label A Year in The Country. Its available now in the Ghost Box Guest Shop in two handcrafted versions.

The Dawn Edition - A hand-finished textured fold out sleeve with white/black CDr with liner notes insert and badge.

and the deluxe Night Edition - A hand-finished box-set containing an all black CDr, 12 page string bound booklet, 4 x badge pack and 2 x stickers.

The compilation is themed around the notion that the year 1973 was a cultural and psychic tipping point. Contributors include...

Circle/Temple, Sproatly Smith, Keith Seatman, Listening Center, The British Space Group, The Hare And The Moon ft Alaska/Michael Begg, Time Attendant, The Rowan Amber Mill, A Year In The Country and David Colohan.

Once again both are ultra limited hand made items. Here's what A Year in the Country have to say...

Fractures is a gathering of studies and explorations that take as their starting point the year 1973; a time when there appeared to be a schism in the fabric of things, a period of political, social, economic and industrial turmoil, when 1960s utopian ideals seemed to corrupt and turn inwards.

As a reaction to such, this was a possible high water mark of the experimentations of psych/acid folk, expressions of eldritch undertones in the land via what has become known in part as folk horror and an accompanying yearning to return to an imagined pastoral idyll.

Looking back, culture, television broadcasts and film from this time often seem imbued with a strange, otherly grittiness; to capture a sense of dissolution in relation to what was to become post-industrial Western culture and ways of living.

Such transmissions and signals viewed now can seem to belong to a time far removed and distant from our own; the past not just as a foreign country but almost as a parallel universe that is difficult to imagine as once being our own lands and world.

OTHER VOICES 08: BEAUTIFY JUNKYARDS

The eighth single in the Other Voices series is released today. Available in the Ghost Box Shop and in your usual record shops and online stores on heavyweight 7" vinyl or download.

  

NEW WAYS OUT, OTHER VOICES 08, BELBURY POLY T-SHIRT

The new album from Belbury Poly, New Ways Out is available today, on LP and Download in all its eerie, daft, glam, faux-folk, motorik, library-ish eerie glory. 

"...the new LP by Jupp's Belbury Poly succeeds purely as a listening experience. Lighter than most Ghost Box fare, Jupp and a small gang of session musicians explore space-age glam ("Hey Now Here He Comes"), fingerpicked folk ("Water Wheel") and a sort of English pastoral take on Michael Rother-style Krautrock. The sepia edges and occult undercurrents are mostly absent, but New Ways Out ploughs a satisfying new furrow. " UNCUT

"...transporting you to those especially daft places only BP can – Tizer-fuelled 70s youth club discos with side-rooms for Ouija boards" Electronic Sound

"...there's an added bounce and groove that makes New Ways Out Belbury Poly's most immediate and accessible release to date." Shindig

The next in our Other Voices series of singles is available to pre-order today. This time it’s two beautiful songs from Portuguese group Beautify Junkyards. It's released on 10th June and follows on from their remarkable album of last year The Beast Shouted Love. 



If you place a pre-order for this in our shop alongside something else, the good people at Greedbag will dispatch the available items now and the single when its released.

Also today to, coincide with the release of New Ways Out  there’s a new Belbury Poly T-shirt. It’s a pale pink  screen print on a black premium soft cotton T shirt.

--Our thanks to DJ Food for pack shots--

NEW WAYS OUT - THE BELBURY POLY pre-ordering now

Due on 27th May and available to pre-order in the Ghost Box shop now. The new album from Belbury Poly melds krautrock, glam, faux folk and ancient TV soundtracks across eleven joyous, slightly camp and oddly unsettling instrumentals. Moving away somewhat from the haunted electronics and occult signifiers of his earlier albums, Jim Jupp convenes his floating ensemble of session musicians to continue the exploration and illustration of their parallel world landscape. Including a guest appearance from The Advisory Circle's Jon Brooks on piano on The Green Scene.


...transporting you to those especially daft places only BP can – Tizer-fuelled 70s youth club discos with side-rooms for Ouija boards
Carl Griffin, Electronic Sound

Pre-order now for 27th May.  CD and LP packaging designed by Julian House with additional artwork by Jim Jupp. The 180gm LP includes a free download card.

THE QUIETENED VILLAGE

The Quietened Village is a  new compilation from the beautiful blog/boutique CDr label A Year in The Country. Its available now in the Ghost Box Guest Shop in two lovingly made versions.

The regular Dawn Edition - A hand-finished textured fold out sleeve with white/black CDr  with  liner notes insert and badge.

and the deluxe Night Edition - A hand-finished box-set containing an all black CDr, 12 page string bound booklet, 4 x badge pack and 2 x stickers.

The album evokes a  beautifully atmospheric pastoral reverie, and a ghostly sense of loss. And the names to conjure with...

Howlround, Time Attendant, The Straw Bear Band, Polypores, The Soulless Party, The Rowan Amber Mill, Cosmic Neighbourhood, A Year In The Country, Sproatly Smith, David Colohan and Richard Moult.

Both are ultra limited to only 52 copies and here's what A Year in the Country say...

The Quietened Village is a study of and reflection on the lost, disappeared and once were homes and hamlets that have wandered off the maps or that have become shells of their former lives and times.

Inspired in part by images of sections of abandoned, submerged villages and the spires of their places of worship re-appearing from the surfaces of reservoirs and lakes, alongside thoughts of dwellings that have succumbed to the natural erosion of the coastline and have slowly tumbled into the sea.

Some of the once were and lost villages which were seedlings for this body of work still stand but their populations are no more, those who lived there evicted at short notice and never to return so that their homes and hearths could be used as training grounds for those who would fight during great conflicts between nations.

Such points of reference have been intertwined with possibly more bodeful reasons for this stilling and ending; thoughts of Midwich Cuckoos-esque fictions or dystopic tales told and transmitted in times gone by and imagined/re-imagined in amongst the strands of The Quietened Village.

NEW WAYS OUT coming MAY 2016

The new album from The Belbury Poly, NEW WAYS OUT coming this May.

Available now, THE APPLE TREE by Hintermass.

THE APPLE TREE BY HINTERMASS, OUT TODAY

The first album from Hintermass, The Apple Tree is available now in the Ghost Box shop. On download, CD or  LP. (LP comes with free DL card).

Jon Brooks (The Advisory Circle, Pattern Forms etc.) and Tim Felton (Seeland), conjure up meditative pastoral poptones to make your garden grow.

Direct your local record shop to the distributor's details here: ghostbox.co.uk/contact.htm

The vibe is mannered psych-folk embellished with simmering electronics, recalling Super Furry Animals at their most reflective on "Patterns Somewhere". here and there, meanwhile they abandon the song: the gorgeous "Luftglider", in particular, imagining Klaus Schulze transported to a rural English idyll.
UNCUT
May 2016

Someone’s needed to do an album like this for a long time. Electronic but also multi-instrumentally organic in the way that a hook-up between Popol Vuh or Ash Ra Tempel and acid-folk dons The Incredible String Band might be if both those acts were current; but then washed with a poised, contemporary sheen of interpretive, skilfully referenced analogue futurism.
Electronic Sound
April 2016

BEAUTIFY JUNKYARDS - RAINBOW GARLAND

Beautify Junkyards will be our special guests on the next Other Voices single this June. Meanwhile here's a recent live TV session of Rainbow Garland, a track from their incredible recent album  The Beast Shouted Love.

PRE-ORDER THE APPLE TREE BY HINTERMASS

The new album by Hintermass, The Apple Tree is due for release on 18th March and Pre-orders open today in the Ghost Box shop .

Its the first LP from Hintermass following their Study Series single for Ghost Box in 2011. The duo comprises Jon Brooks (The Advisory Circle) and Tim Felton (of Seeland and formerly Broadcast) who come together with an elegantly crafted pastoral pop album. Brooks beautiful production complements Felton's rich vocal perfectly. Catchy songs with electronic and folk sensibilities are balanced by expertly handled abstract sketches and instrumental pieces.

Both artists cite the kosmiche music of Ash-ra and Popul Vuh and their simultaneous re-discovery of the music of Nico as strong influences on the album. The songs also have clear roots in both traditional and psychedelic folk.

Emotionally engaging and nostalgically transportive, ‘The Apple Tree’s golden-hued scenes and sketches should set you up nicely for the returning spring... a bittersweet paean to the half-remembered high summer tryst under the fruit trees that you never had.

Electronic Sound

March 2016

Pre-order now and available 18th March on CD or heavyweight vinyl in beautifully illustrated and tactile packaging and also on all download and audio streaming services. The vinyl version comes with a free download card inside.