GHOST BOX AT GREENMAN

Ghost Box DJs, House and Jupp, will be opening events in the Talking Shop Tent at The Greenman festival this Friday (16th August) at 12:00, midday. Their sets will book end a talk by marvellous, magical Mark Pilkington at 12:45 and  then an interview with mighty, megalithical, Julian Cope at 14:15.

THE ADVISORY CIRCLE SUMMER MIX

 

THE QUIETUS TALKS TO JULIAN HOUSE

http://thequietus.com/articles/12902-ghost-box-the-focus-group-interview

A FIELD IN ENGLAND

Julian House's trailer for Ben Wheatley's A Field In England

THE SOUNDCARRIERS

 

Friends of this parish, The Soundcarriers will be joining Ghost Box for a new album this winter. Meanwhile there are still a few copies of their marvellous limited edition album The Other World of The Sound Carriers floating round.

Its a psyched out compilation of instrumentals (some of which are versions of songs that will make it to the next album on GB), all with The Soundcarriers unmistakably powerful and dynamic analogue production. Listen here.



 

JOHN FOXX AND THE BELBURY CIRCLE

This September on Ghost Box...

 

More info and clips soon. Meanwhile  Listening Center's Study Series 09 is available now.

 

THE ADVISORY CIRCLE MIX FOR FANGORIA

To coincide with a piece on The Finishing Line, probably the most upsetting Public Information Film ever made, Fangoria magazine asked Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle to put together this PIF inspired mix...

 

 

FULL CIRCLE

Our thanks to Ross Macfarlane at the Wellcome Trust Library for this dire warning about the importance of "planned parenting". ( more info )

SHAPWICK IS BACK IN STOCK

Jon Brook's Shapwick (Clay Pipe Music) is back in stock in the Ghost Box shop. Once again there are only a handful of copies so you'll need to be quick.

STUDY SERIES 09

The next Ghost Box Study Series 7" and download, Number 9: "Projections", is due out on 28th June.

New York's Listening Center enrol for the Study Series and present a powerful analogue electronic epic, Titoli. Pye Corner Audio appear on the B side and take Listening Center's "Town of Tomorrow" for a spin across the dusty dancefloor of a deserted dance hall. 


On super heavyweight 7" vinyl in the usual luxurious Julian House packaging. Pre-order in the Ghost Box shop now.

CAFE KAPUT'S SCIENCE AND NATURE

There's a new release this week on Jon Brook's Cafe Kaput label. Its an anonymous release (stage whisper: "It's Jon !") with the utilitarian, library-esque title, Vol 1. Science and Nature.

Free of the confines of The Advisory Circle, Jon's gone to town on his ever expanding modular synth and put together this compilation of beautiful cues. The references to Chappell and Studio G classics are spot on and the sound sculpting and melodies are an absolute joy. I suspect JB had a lot of fun putting this one together  and needless to say its as beautifully produced as ever. (Artwork by Moon Wiring Club's Ian Hodgson by the way). Get it here or here...



Another digital release this week is by Belbury parishioner, and occasional Belbury Poly drummer, Jim Musgrave aka Land Equivalents . Its an EP entitled Good Morning. Fantastic drumming as always from Mr. Musgrave and his keyboard chops are pretty nifty too, with soaring fuzz pedal synth melodies that make it a free 'n easy, uplifting experience. That one's available here...


 

GET ON BOARD THE ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL TODAY !

In the Ghost Box shop (and many other good stores real and digital) today.

On luxuriously packaged and illustrated 8 panel digi pack CD
OR super heavyweight vinyl LP (includes free download code card with access to full album and bonus CD tracks)
OR simple, old fashioned, ever lovin', download.

 LP download card.
UPDATE: Please note download URL on this card should read
www.procards.com/download
Apologies for any confusion caused by missing ".com"


 



BUILDING A HUMAN

PRE-ORDER THE ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL

The new album from The Focus Group, The Elektrik Karousel is due for release on 10th May, but you can pre-order it right now in the Ghost Box Shop.

This is the first Ghost Box release to feature  redesigned CD packaging and this first edition comes in a highly desirable 8 panel digi pack designed by Julian House. The LP version comes on super heavyweight vinyl and includes a free download code card inside. The design is inspired by 1960s underground press and is conceived as a kind of mind altering DIY board game. On the release date download only customers to the Greedbag shop will be able to get high quality flac audio files. Listen to clips here.

THE GHOST HUNTER



Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington

Dick runs a ghost tour, and he’s got a great story to tell. It’s the one they all go home talking about. The headliner. It’s about a Ragged School in old York. About something terrible buried beneath the cobbles. It’s about the past. It’s about ghosts. And it’s about to catch up with him.

A new play by Stewart Pringle, writer of As Ye Sow.

Director - Jeffrey Mayhew
Producer - George Warren
Starring - Tom Richards

Tuesday 30th April to Saturday 25th May, 2013
Box Office: 020 7837 7816

SHINDIG IS HERE TO HAUNT YOU

For a while now Shindig magazine has been a big seller in the Belbury Newsagents, so excitement here is rather high as this month editor, Jon "Mojo" Mills has the vision and generosity to open the broad doors of  his psychedelic church to Broadcast, Ghost Box and a wealth of influences that feed into their worlds.

Thomas Patterson interviews James Cargill for an astounding and sensitive feature on Broadcast, illustrated by Julian House.  Occasional Belbury Poly plank spanker, Christopher Budd talks to Messrs Jupp and House for a profile of Ghost Box Records. There's a a history of The Children's Film foundation and a fantastic primer on the world of the Italian giallo film illustrated with another great piece of House artwork. As if that weren't enough  there's a profile of the ISB's Mike Heron, Mark Brend on White Noise and a piece on new ager's Emerald Web in the run up to a Finders Keepers compilation.

 

Its hard to imagine any other publication that will be of more interest to members of this Parish right now, so get yours here or at these stockists.

SHAPWICK ON VINYL

Last year Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle took a break from his native Ghost Box  to record an album called Shapwick for Clay Pipe Records. Clay Pipe is a marvellously inventive boutique label run by Frances Castle, who specialises in beautifully hand made limited edition CDs.

 

Shapwick sold out of its first run of 110 overnight, so if you missed out the first time round, now is your chance to get it again, not the handmade CD unfortunately but this time its on Vinyl (with a free download code inside) and its in the Ghost Box shop right now. Once again though its only a limited edition.

Shapwick was inspired by a night drive through the countryside of England's West Country and is in similar territory to the Advisory Circle's melodic and melancholy, rustic electronics but taking in more elements of acoustic instrumentation and found sound. A perfectly self contained mood piece and as elegantly produced as any Brooks project.

 

 

UPDATE: This sold out in a matter of days again ! Clay Pipe tell us there may be another edition at some point - we'll let you know. 

THE ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL

The long awaited fourth album from the Focus Group is due out on 10th May on Vinyl, CD and Download.

GHOSTWRITER

 

Coming soon to Chaffinch Records  is a new 7" and download EP by Ghostwriter. This was the ambitious project of Mark Brend and an ensemble of invited musicians who co-wrote and preformed in various sessions kicked off back in 2010.  Here's what Chaffinch say about it...

 

The title track finds Brend joined by Belbury Poly/Ghost Box’s Jim Jupp for an imagined walk through 1930s London alongside Christian mystic writer Charles Williams. This 11 minute rumination is bookended with two short pieces, Autobiographical Sketch no. 1, and With Stringed Instruments, A Song, featuring Brend’s former Fariña bandmates Matt Gale and Tim Conway. A fourth download-only track, Bidding Bell, finds Brend drawing regular Ghostwriter collaborator Suzy Mangion and new recruit Adrian Ramsey into a pastoral/choral conversation with God.

 

Official release date is 4th March but defying all laws of time and space as they so often do, Norman Records have some of these lovely 7"s in stock right now

The Parish Council is indebted to Mark for introducing us to the world of Christian mystic and forgotten member of the Inklings, Charles Williams. If the notion of Christian mysticism is off putting to you we recommend  you start with The War in Heaven in which a dotty, academic, village curate recovers the grail and defeats the machinations of an evil diabolist thereby saving the world. Or Many Dimensions in which an antiquarian acquires the Stone of Solomon which can enable the owner to transcend space and time.

 

 

At one level these are occult mystery novels but there's far more here to think about than that might imply. Dennis Wheatley this is not.
(NB you might want to avoid Shadows of Ecstasy, its far from his best and it contains some rather unpalatable and outmoded notions about race.)

We are also very grateful to Mark for sending  a copy of his new book  The Sound of Tomorrow which tells the story of electronic music from the point of view of its mass media proponents rather than from that of the "serious" or academic composers.

 

 

Bloomsbury say this....

London, 1966: Paul McCartney met a group of three electronic musicians called Unit Delta Plus. McCartney was there because he had become fascinated by electronic music, and wanted to know how it was made. He was one of the first rock musicians to grasp its potential, but even he was notably late to the party. For years, composers and technicians had been making electronic music for film and TV. Hitchcock had commissioned a theremin soundtrack for Spellbound (1945); The Forbidden Planet (1956) featured an entirely electronic score; Delia Derbyshire had created the Dr Who theme in 1963; and by the early 1960s, all you had to do was watch commercial TV for a few hours to hear the weird and wonderful sounds of the new world. The Sound of Tomorrow tells the compelling story of the sonic adventurers who first introduced electronic music to the masses. A network of composers, producers, technicians and inventors, they took emerging technology and with it made sound and music that was bracingly new.

Jon Brooks' Winter Mix for 2013