This week’s featured artist (#26) Ghost Wave sound finds itself somewhere between the Flying Nun bands of the 80s, like the Clean, the Chills, and the Bats, the British explosion of the 1960s and the wayfaring dubs of Lee “Scratch” Perry…
Formed by songwriter Matthew L. Paul in 2010 in his hometown of Auckland, New Zealand, the indie pop group not only makes mind meltingly good music, they do it also for a a great cause. Having their new track “HEAVEN” touched by the mixing hands of Sonic Boom, Power Nap and Shayne P Carter, Ghost Wave donates all profits from it’s downloads to an organization helping prevent youth suicide in Aotearoa.
The band’s first selftitled EP in 2012 resulted in a collaboration by Paul with Eammon Logan. Filling out the live group with the addition of bassist Mike Ellis and, later, Jamie Kennedy and Andy Frost, their earliest days were spent dealing with gear theft and playing opening sets for groups like Times New Viking and Explosions in the Sky. After a steady schedule of live performances and recording, Ghost Wave’s debut album, Ages, saw release in 2013. The album was engineered and mixed by Clean member Thomas Bell and released on Flying Nun, coming full circle with the band’s influences.
Their follow-up, Radio Norfolk (vinyl or digital), arrived in the summer of 2016 and expanded on the group’s psychedelic pop leanings while adding more electronic influences.