Hot Press meets Ghostpoet

Hot Press catches up with alt. electro artist Ghostpoet as his second LP, Some Say I So I Say Light, hits shelves. A natural progression from the dark and glitchy Mercury-nominated debut he made in his bedroom (2011’s excellent Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam), the new 11-tracker saw Londoner Obaro Ejimiwe head to the studio for the first time. Was it a natural step to move on from the DIY route?

“Yeah, it was what I wanted to do”, begins Ejimiwe. “It was important for me to push myself creatively, and I felt that going to the studio was what I needed to do this time around.”
Having self-produced Peanut Butter Blues, there must have had to be a solid, trusting relationship between him and his Some Say I… co-producer, Richard Formby.
“I very much had an idea of what I wanted to make,” he explains, “and it was then just a case of having someone come on board who could help me shape that music. In particular, it was great to have help with the technical side of things, ‘cos I’m no technical wizard. Plus, working with Richard really opened me up to the idea of analogue, which I’d never done before. But yeah, the most important thing for me is to get on with a potential producer.”
Though Some Say I… retains that atmospheric, trip-hop Ghostpoet sound at its core, it sees the 30-year-old veer into synth and rock territories too. With ethereal guest vocals from the likes of Lucy Rose, Woodpecker Wooliams and former Golden Silvers singer Gwilym Gold, did the collaborators influence where he went, sonically?
“I think it’s a subconscious thing”, muses Ejimiwe. “I wanted to get voices on the record that would best match the music I was making. With [chill-wave, synthy track] ‘Dorsal Morsel’, I wrote it before Gwilym was involved, but with his voice in mind. Luckily, he wanted to do it.”
Thematically, the album (like its predecessor) explores both the personal and the profound. Its first single, ‘Meltdown’ depicts a relationship coming to an end; ‘But you and me weren’t meant to be, and someone somewhere knew it – from the start’, while ‘Thymethymethyme’ ponders the passing of time; ‘Maybe it’s time to find out where I really wanna be’. Its sentiments reminded this scribe of the slightly terrifying run-up to her 30th birthday last year…
“Ah, congrats!” grins Ejimiwe. And to you, Sir. (He joined the club in January.) Did the end of his twenties dwell on his mind at all as he wrote the album?
“I think it did, again on a subconscious level”, he admits. “Like you say, it’s the end of a decade in your life. For a lot of people it’s a time when you’re trying to find yourself and work out what you want to do. And in the traditional sense, you’re supposed to be in a particular place, job-wise and relationship-wise, by the time you hit 30. It did play on my mind a bit, and I guess that manifested itself in some of the lyrics.
“But again”, he continues, “when you get to 30, you realise it’s not a big deal. It’s the beginning of a chapter and potential opportunities and experiences ahead. I’m quite happy with my age. Some people haven’t had the opportunity to be 30 – so I count my blessings.”
Did he party on the big day like ‘twas 1999?
“Yeah!” he laughs. “I had quite a heavy session. I was very pleased with how it turned out!”

Some Say I So I Say Light is out now.