GHOSTPOET - Dark Days + Canapes (2021 Repress) - LP - Clear Vinyl [BF2021]

LP – Limited Edition Clear Vinyl

(*Only 1,500 copies in this edition.)

Out of print for a couple of years. Dark Days + Canapés is Ghostpoet’s most defining album to date. A stunning and stimulating return, Dark Days + Canapés is a record that captures the sense of unease felt by so many in recent times. After receiving recognition for the beat-driven arrangements of his first two albums, third album Shedding Skin initiated a more alt-rock sound that saw Ghostpoet Mercury nominated for a second time. Dark Days and Canapés, produced by Leo Abrahams, best known for his work with Brian Eno and Jon Hopkins, delves even further into a fuller, guitar driven sound.

When commenting on the first track from the album, ‘Immigrant Boogie’, Ghostpoet aka Obaro Ejimiwe explains; “I’m usually more comfortable writing in ambiguous terms, but this time around I felt there were specific stories that needed telling.”

Serendipity and experimentalism were embraced in the studio and several original ideas evolved or were supplanted by something unexpected. On ‘Freakshow’ the addition of manic laughter from a gospel choir, who had turned up to sing on a different track, compounds the crazed nature of the song, whilst ‘Blind As A Bat…’, influenced by Talk Talk’s ‘Laughing Stock’, saw string players invited to improvise with fragments of their performance sampled and overlaid to build something less structured, more wayward and reflective of the state of mind of the protagonist.

Typically self-effacing, Obaro says; “there’s a sort of life-force that Leo and the other musicians brought to this record, and that was crucial. I want people to listen to the songs and be able to say, ‘So Isn’t just me then? Phew.”