Visiting Ghosts

Visiting Ghosts

http://www.visitingghosts.com
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Biography

Visiting Ghosts formed in London in early 2003 when Charles Campbell-Jones, a singer recently relocated from Australia to study music, responded to a classified ad placed by Clem White, a similarly displaced New Zealand guitarist. After six months of searching, earning a living as a life model in various London art colleges, Campbell-Jones had grown disillusioned with “bands living the dream before it is theirs to live”, and was desperate to find a project that didn’t try to disguise a paucity of song writing skills with walls of distortion. White, meanwhile, was looking for somebody to help him capture the darkness and melancholy of artists such as Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey and Tom Waits.

And so began the song writing partnership that produced Visiting Ghosts. (The name is taken from a book of short stories published by White’s mother.) A catalogue of songs developed reasonably quickly - a musical idea from either of the pair would be worked up into something more substantial in White’s home studio, after which Campbell-Jones would concoct the lyric, generally pertaining to his obsessions with love, death, miscommunication and anxiety. With the addition of friends and Englishmen Tyrax Ventura (an erstwhile tombstone inscriber) and Louis Richardson (a handler for the London Magistrate’s Court) on bass and drums respectively, the band began rehearsing, performing a series of low-key London gigs late in 2003.

By January 2004, Visiting Ghosts were ready to enter the studio proper. Their self-titled debut album was recorded at Berry Street Studios, London, by producer Kevin Poree (chosen for his love of the drum sound on Neil Young’s “Harvest” album). A 1970s-built studio (Barry White once graced its vocal booth), Berry St provided the space and the ambience to record as live and as quickly as possible without sounding like a garage band - tracking, overdubs, mixing and mastering were completed in six days. Sonia Kiourtzidis, grand-niece of the Armenian philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff and pianist on the track ‘Beats Me’, was added to the permanent line-up soon after the album’s completion.

None of Visiting Ghosts are particularly inclined to elucidate what they do; however, they would hope one day to be compared to (or, just plane admire) the following artists: Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey, Mark Lanegan, Smog, Lou Reed, Elbow, Tom Waits, Love, Captain Beefheart, Soilent Green, The Eels, Spain, Tindersticks, The Doors, Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music, The Melvins, Van Der Graaf Generator.

Visiting Ghosts are currently performing around London and the UK, with a number of European tour dates being planned for the near future. They are also preparing material for a second album, to be recorded early in 2005.

Charles S. Campbell-Jones: Vocals, Keys
Clem White: Guitar
Tyrax-V-Ventura: Bass
Louis Richardson: Drums
Sonia Kiourtzidis: Keys
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