Ghost­po­et, aka Obaro Ejimi­we, is gift­ed with a sub­lime­ly expres­sive voice and an abil­i­ty to con­vey sen­ti­ment with his lyrics. Con­fu­sion, anguish, despair and thoughts about the world are con­veyed powerfully.

I did­n’t man­age to see him per­form till 2021 when he appeared at Green Man fes­ti­val. He was in the cav­ernous, dark Far Out tent, rather than on one of the more appeal­ing out­door stages but this suit­ed the inten­si­ty of his set, con­cen­trat­ing and dis­till­ing his per­for­mance. He said it was his first live show since lock­down. For those of us hang­ing over the bar­ri­er it was (well, I speak for those next to me), an enrap­tur­ing experience.

Since then Ghost­po­et has left the UK to live in Berlin where he’s been involved with visu­al projects. Pro­duc­ing new music has tak­en its time, but here it is. He has just released a new EP enti­tled ‘Am I the Change I Wish to See?” plus a suit­ably moody video for the sub­lime and star­tling­ly orig­i­nal track Oh Lord. As Ghost­po­et announces on social media, he has mixed feel­ings, releas­ing music while the world is expe­ri­enc­ing unset­tling and trou­bling times.

From the open­ing notes of Oh Lord, a hazy, shim­mer­ing, frag­ment­ed flow of synth notes rever­ber­ate in your head. It’s deep and dark, with the sub bass flow­ing in, while the instru­men­ta­tion weaves and shifts almost imper­cep­ti­bly. And then there’s the vocals. Instead of clar­i­ty, Ghost­po­et­’s vocals are almost indis­tinct, far back in the mix, allow­ing all the ele­ments of this track to coa­lesce and flow in a sin­gu­lar tide. I con­tem­plate whether I’d instinc­tive­ly know this was Ghost­po­et if I had­n’t known it was him all along. I’m not sure I would. The famil­iar upward into­na­tion of the vocals is absent but that rich bari­tone remains. 

Oh Lord is the lat­est track from his lat­est EP on Band­camp called ‘Am I the Change I Wish to See?” There are two fur­ther tracks: Who Knows and Hold the Line. It’s good to see Ghost­po­et back and mak­ing music.
Ghost­po­et / Face­book Am I the Change I Wish to See?”