Warm Ghost is an electronic experimental pop group based out of Brooklyn, New York, specializing in ambient synth pop. Formed by singer / multi-instrumentalist Paul Duncan, Warm Ghost became a duo with Daniel Lewis in 2011. The group pairs spacious synthesizers with skittering, electronic beats, creating a textural sound that is highly eclectic. Their recordings have drawn comparisons to numerous genres and groups, including

Autechre Autechre ( ) are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both from Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are among the best known acts signed to UK electronic label Warp Records, through which all o ...

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music, electronic band formed in Basildon, Essex in 1980. Originally formed with the line-up of Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andy Fletcher (musician), Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke, the band currently consists ...

Fennesz Christian Fennesz (born 25 December 1962) is an Austrian producer and guitarist active in electronic music since the 1990s, often credited mononymously as Fennesz. His work utilizes guitar and laptop computers to blend melody with treated samp ...

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) are an English electronic music, electronic band formed in Meols, Merseyside in 1978 by Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals). Regarded as pioneers of electronic musi ...

, and

Cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study the magnetosphere * Asteroid cluster, a small ...

. Paul Duncan has said that Arthur Russell is an influence on Warm Ghost. In 2011, Warm Ghost made their debut with the Claws Overhead EP, released on Geographic North, and followed up later that year with their first full-length effort, Narrows, on

Partisan Records Partisan Records is an independent record label with offices in London, Berlin, and Los Angeles, as well as in New York City, where the company was co-founded in 2007 by Tim Putnam and Ian Wheeler. The label, initially run out of Putnam's South B ...

. The group is notable for positive attention from avant-garde music critics. Duncan was born in

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that consists of approximately 38 counties. It is roughly divided into Northeast Texas, Northeast, Southeast Texas, Sout ...

, but studied painting and sound design at

Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. It was founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the United ...

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Brita ...

, before moving to

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

and then

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. He has collaborated with artists including

multi-instrumentalist A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments, often but not exclusively at a professional level of proficiency. Also known as woodwind doubler, doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and mor ...

Oren Ambarchi Oren Ambarchi (born 1969) is an Australian musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays mainly electric guitar and percussion. Biography Oren Ambarchi was born in Sydney to an Iraqi Jewish family. Ambarchi has been performing live since ...

, Joe Stickney of ''

Bear in Heaven Bear in Heaven was an American indie rock band from New York City, formed by Jon Philpot in 2003. The sound of the band incorporates influences from psychedelic music, electronic music and krautrock. History Philpot has previously released mu ...

'',

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

Fred Lonberg-Holm Fred Lonberg-Holm (born 1 October 1962) is an American cellist based in Chicago. He moved from New York City to Chicago in 1995. He refers to himself as the anti-cellist. Lonberg-Holm is most identified with playing free improvisation and free j ...

, David Daniell and members of the groups

Tortoise Tortoises ( ) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like o ...

and

Grizzly Bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horr ...

. On top of mixing and producing duties, Duncan also provides the majority of the instrumentation of his records, including

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usu ...

synths A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis an ...

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( ; or , : bells and : play) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a Musical keyboard, keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the v ...

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

, and

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

. He has art directed all of Warm Ghost's music videos and remixed numerous other artists under the moniker Warm Ghost, including

Junip Junip is a Swedish folk rock band. The band is made up of the duo of José González (vocals, guitars) and Tobias Winterkorn (organ, Moog synthesizer) with various accompanying musicians in recordings and in live gigs. Their songs "Far Away" an ...

Lotus Plaza Lockett James Pundt IV (born October 7, 1982) is an American musician and multi-instrumentalist. He is the guitarist and occasional lead vocalist of Atlanta-based indie rock group Deerhunter which he joined in 2005. Pundt also releases solo mater ...

and taken

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

folk pop harmonies from the group

Mountain Man A mountain man is an Geographical exploration, explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting, fishing and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s ...

and turned it into "electropop." There is no consensus about what genre best describes the band's music, but it has been described by various reviewers as

coldwave Industrial metal is the fusion of heavy metal and industrial music, typically employing repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Prominent industrial metal acts include Ministry, Nine ...

electropop Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a rev ...

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

, and

chillwave Chillwave (originally considered synonymous with glo-fi and hypnagogic pop) is a music microgenre that emerged in the late 2000s. It is characterized by evoking the popular music of the late 1970s and early 1980s while engaging with notions of ...

Music reviews

''Pitchfork'' reviewer Joshua Love wrote that Duncan's music departed from the ''

'' style of artists such as

Neon Indian Neon Indian is an American electronic music band from Denton, Texas. The music is composed by Mexican-born Alan Palomo (born July 24, 1988), who is also part of the band Ghosthustler and releases solo music under his birth name and the stage nam ...

and

Washed Out Ernest Weatherly Greene Jr. (born October 3, 1982), known professionally as Washed Out, is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Commonly associated with the chillwave genre in the 2010s, ''Pitchfork'' dubbed him "the godfather of ...

because of Duncan's "sternly romantic voice" which helps give his music a "general smeary, indistinct aesthetic, which is possibly its most alluring strength." A review on ''Weird Fishes'' described the ''Uncut Diamond'' album positively with "smooth vocals" with songs that are "beautiful and perplexing." Reviewer Brad Knain in ''Hybrid Magazine'' described the ''Uncut Diamond'' album to be an "electronic treat" that "sounds almost like samples from Bladerunner mixed with The Breakfast Club soundtrack." Reviewer Andrew Duncan from ''ZapTown Magazine'' wrote that the music was a "full sound of delightful synth delicacies that never over-cooks a style." A review in ''ALTsounds'' described the music as "psychedelic electronic dream pop" which was driven by Duncan's vocal talent.

Discography

* ''Claws Overhead'' (EP), 2011, Geographic North * ''Uncut Diamond'' (EP; reissue of ''Claws Overhead'' with two bonus tracks), 2011,

* ''Narrows'' (LP), 2011, Partisan Records

References

External links

Warm Ghost on Partisan Records
{{Authority control Indie pop groups from New York (state) Musical groups from Brooklyn Musical duos from New York (state) Musical groups established in 2011 2011 establishments in New York City