Bleep Bleep

Close
Close View Full Product

Item added to your cart.

Checkout

And so to 2020, where the label has truly zoned in on the ache of this grotesque age. They’ve wisely benched the club cuts; those will make sense another day. Supplanting the bangers are a clutch of tender full-lengths, albums that eke extra feeling out of already-emotional electronics, and find new wrinkles within familiar templates.

Take “Maxyboy,” Patricia’s second flutter on the haunted wheel of fortune, a record that we called a mix of “Lynchian dreaminess” and “moonlight-braindance.” Or “Cast,” Heathered Pearls’ lonesome drift through the recesses of deep space, where songs like ‘Pain Tolerance’ act as moments of glinting hope through turbulent times. With a prodigious rate of release, some Ghostly records land with impact and others need time to settle. Mary Lattimore’s phantasmagorical harp ripples on “Silver Ladders'' won plaudits across the board; hers is a voice, Valenti said in a recent interview, “that supersedes the tools of the time and goes bigger.”

Even the greasy jams of TOBACCO (and co-pilot Trent Reznor) got a touch more wistful this year, melancholy speckling the oil slick. If there’s any justice, the brilliant “Hot Wet & Sassy” should find favour as a cult classic to come. But then, you could justifiably say that about every release SV4 & co have guided out this autumn alone, from Khotin to KILN: each one an essential cast member in the Ghostly cinematic universe.

Even a pair of Ghostly re-releases tell their own sub-plot. The chirpy house of Gold Panda’s “Lucky Shiner” has been brought back to boil, and Com Truise has updated “In Decay,” his collection of slanted synth jams, with a wryly titled expansion: “In Decay, Too.” Ghostly could have very easily kept feeding this ouroboros of early 2010s nostalgia (Matthew Dear’s “Black City” was there for the taking!) but have instead committed to strike a balance between fantastic past and promising future, like managing Night and Day.

Maybe that tightrope walk is what being a Detroit label is all about. Or maybe Ghostly are simply extremely good at what they do – as they have been for two decades and counting.

Ghostly International Full Catalogue

View More
Close
Previous Play Pause Next
features.playlist.label Close
Loading:
--:-- --:--

Privacy Settings

This site uses cookies. For information, please read our cookies policy. Cookies Policy

Allow All
Manage Consent Preferences