Ghostpoet: Momentum
Following on from the release of his Mercury nominated debut, ‘Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam’, Ghostpoet announced his sophomore album ‘Some Say I So I Say Light’ released on 6th May 2013 through Play It Again Sam. Obaro Ejimiwe, aka Ghostpoet, laughs when he remembers how Gilles Peterson “took a risk on a random maverick” back in 2010 by signing him to the Radio 1 DJ’s Brownswood imprint. Within a year, that risk paid off: Ghostpoet’s debut album, Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam, marked him out as one of the most distinct, uncategorisable and forward-thinking voices to emerge in British music this decade, and it was rewarded with a surprise Mercury Prize nomination in 2011.
Having moved on from Brownswood to Play It Again Sam, Ghostpoet’s creativity has blossomed even more. On his second album, ‘Some Say I So I Say Light’, he pushes even further in all directions than on ‘Peanut Butter Blues’, mixing the abstract and the concrete with uncanny skill. Industrial beats, sonorous piano lines and hyper-detailed ornamentation provide a backdrop for an artist who sounds ever more like a man old before his time.
Ghostpoet attributes the album’s experimental bent to the change in his recording situation. Whereas ‘Peanut Butter Blues’ was entirely self-produced on a computer in Ghostpoet’s bedroom, ‘Some Say I So I Say Light’ is a studio-based work co-produced with the talented Richard Formby (Wild Beasts, Darkstar, Egyptian Hip-Hop).
Ghostpoet’s Momentum grant will be used to finance the studio time and producer costs of his third album.