Ghostwoods
My Neon

darkjazz / experimental-electronic / darkwave / drone

Led by musician/composer James Lees, the languorous, atmospheric music of Ghostwoods has been gradually blinking into existence since the lockdown winter of 2020. Isolated and with time to kill at his home in Mt Nebo/Jinibara Country, James turned to composing and tinkering on the piano with the sparse and spooky fragments that would become the first collection of Ghostwoods compositions.

'My Neon' was created with much less planning than typically goes into a James Lees project. Particularly in the studio, Lees is usually meticulously prepared when approaching a session but challenged himself to be more free and leaving space to be playful and experiment.

As with many instrumental pieces, the narrative/theme/meaning is left to the listener to manifest. There are shared intrinsic links between the album’s six tracks, some even unwittingly inhabiting similar musical motifs in their early stages. After being carefully shaped and chiseled in the studio, those shared compositional affinities linger in the tracks and connect them as a whole even with each tune having a distinct stylistic identity.

“The more I work on Ghostwoods music, the more I understand what it is actually about," says Lees. “Having always been used to working with singer/songwriters, I am very concept-based and the instrumental setting of Ghostwoods subverted and challenged that for me. As we do more recording, and more live shows, the music and the project itself is teaching me what it is about. It’s such a fascinating and satisfying process.”