Win yourself a pair of tickets to see Ghostpoet in The Button Factory on Friday 25th October.
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. It was a sudden rise for a man who for whom news of a record deal came in the same week that he was made redundant from his office job in insurance.
Two years on, having moved on from Brownswood to, 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, whether intoning words so laconically it’s virtually spoken word or croaking out sung melodies. At times, Ghostpoet’s vocals seem to deliberately recede into the flickering shadows of the music, though this doesn’t lessen their gravitas in the slightest. The lyrics that come through are as rooted in everyday life as ever, though: from unopened mail to takeaway meals, Ghostpoet is never less than completely identifiable. It’s an album that positions him in the tradition of modern British auteurs as interested in pushing the boundaries sonically as expressing cathartic feelings, from Tricky to The Streets.
POD presents
GHOSTPOET
7:30pm, Friday 25th October 2013
The Button Factory, Temple Bar
Tickets are €16.30 (inc booking fee) from Ticketmaster and usual suspects, but if you’d prefer to win a pair you can just send an email with GHOSTPOETTICKETSPLEASE as its subject to [email protected] by midnight on Wednesday October 23rd and you never know…
