Ghost Box 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Ghost Box founder Jim Jupp returns with a new album from his flagship project, Belbury Poly, and this time around he's doing things a bit differently. Compared to the usual winsome minimal synth soliloquies, he's recruited a full band to round out his sound on The Path. As a result, this isn't like any other Belbury Poly record to date, even if past collaborator Christopher Budd returns on bass and guitar. Elsewhere, Midlake's Jesse Chandler lends some flute, clarinet and key tones, Max Saidi holds down the drums and Justin Hopper offers his narration to the record. Striking on a slinky, library-meets-lounge style without losing that hauntological charm, it's a bold new direction for Belbury Poly.

Review: Hauntologic '80s nostalgia-propagandizers Ghost Box return once again with a new one from Eric Zann, 'Ouroborindra'. Ghostly vocals mesh with a wide range of acoustic and electronic instrumentation here to produce an inspired album that draws on early 20th century cosmic horror fiction, resulting in some dastardly thematic combination of Lovecraft, BBC Christmas Horror stories, and Scarfolk. Radio-static noise and cavernous intakes of breath on tracks like 'Threshold' and 'Dols' blend with long ambient progressions and string sequences, recalling mock-'80s film influences such as the latest haunter 'Enys Men'. As ever with Ghost Box, a patented corecore sound is captured.

Review: Large Plants made quite a splash with their debut album on Ghost Box last year. Primarily the project of Jack Sharp, it was a noticeable swerve for the synth-heavy label towards classic 70s hard rock, but somehow it all fits together. That sense of destiny continues wholeheartedly with the swiftly delivered follow-up The Thorn, which features a shift in approach towards a more psychedelic, folk-inclined and prog-tickled sound. There's still plenty of heft in the rhythm section, but Sharp sounds much more pastoral in his tone, and the songwriting on this outstanding sophomore album follows suit.

Review: Pye Corner Audio is one of the fundamental projects on Ghost Box, as Martin Jenkins indulges his hauntological synth fantasies on an increasingly fertile seam of investigation where drone, wave and death disco can all intersect. Jenkins has never been trapped by retro-fetishism with his analogue sound, and on The Endless Echo he's all the more inspired as he meditates on themes of science fiction and the illusory nature of time. Throbbing, chugging beatdowns sit comfortably alongside spatial, beatless investigations, all sculpted with the masterful touch that comes from considerable experience and a generous assortment of vintage boxes.