Ghostpoet: ‘It so happens that I tread a slightly darker path than your mainstream artist’

Dark and foreboding, Obaro Ejimiwe’s fifth album as Ghostpoet is an eerily prescient record for troubled times.

That I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep arrives amid the Covid-19 pandemic is entirely coincidental; nonetheless its tone clearly reflects the unease its maker felt about the way things might be heading.

“I definitely felt that society at large was in a rocky place,” says the 37-year-old south Londoner. “You just open a newspaper or watch a news report and think, ‘What are we doing to ourselves? What are we doing to the planet?’

“I’ve always tried to tap into the zeitgeist and I wanted to reflect the times that we were living in.

“We finished the record in November last year, and the ideas within it you could say span a year or two. It’s the way I’ve felt for a while. It so happens that I tread a slightly darker path than your mainstream artist so I’m always going to end up in this kind of world. It’s informed by the present day, I would say.”

The sound of I Grow Tired... was influenced by two books that Ejimiwe was reading. “Once I decided that I was going to produce it myself, I wanted to get a better understanding of what that would entail,” he says, pointing to how much he learned from Phill Brown’s book Are We Still Rolling?

“He was the engineer on the last two Talk Talk records. That book was really interesting because he talked about the recording sessions and processes for Laughing Stock, and how he would bring the musicians in and give them a bit of an idea for a really basic composition and allow them to just jam without any real direction. Off the back of hours of tapes they would cut the bits that they wanted. I thought that was really interesting. I kind of used that with my ideas.

“It was more a case of me directing or orchestrating an idea, rather than just let the musicians play what they wanted, but it was definitely inspired by reading that particular book.”

He also “dipped into” David Byrne’s book, How Music Works. “It was interesting looking at music in a different way. I remember reading bits about how particular music was created, the spaces that they expected their music to fill, that dictated the kind of sounds or the amplification of particular sounds or instruments used. That was definitely in the mix as well.”

Thomas James’ startling monochrome video for the bluesy lead single, Concrete Pony, takes inspiration from some of the nightmarish visions of filmmaker David Lynch. Ejimiwe says he likes to be “pretty involved” with the visual representation for his work, explaining he will choose from various treatments and meet the director to discuss their ideas further. “The initial idea was definitely his, not mine, but I kind of shaped it and made sure it fitted for me,” he says.

“I guess with this particular video, it’s the first one I’ve been in for a while. I thought it was important this time around. He made a very comfortable environment for me to express myself and push myself to step out of my comfort zone a bit more, which was important for what I wanted to do with the music this time around as well as the visuals.”

The song addresses our relationship with social media. Ejimiwe admits to occasionally hankering after his “old life” before the digital age but recognises the virus crisis has in some ways intensified our reliance on smartphones and the internet.

“Right about now it’s the main source of communication. It was definitely secondary to human interaction, but that depends on how old you are. For the younger generation the internet is their main form of communication to a large extent. In terms of myself I definitely want to have a much more simplistic life. If I could turn it all off I probably would, but right now it’s the only way I can communicate with friends and family, and in terms of promotion and marketing my music it’s all I have, so I’m not going to turn around and say we should all just delete our accounts.

“I think it depends on you as an individual. For me, I’m just of a mind that I want to be less present in a social media sense. I’m not a prolific poster of content. I made a conscious decision there.”

Ejimiwe recruited a number of guest vocalists for this album, including Art School Girlfriend, Skinny Girl Diet’s Delilah Holiday, SaraSara and Katie Dove Dixon. While he might be seen as having a fondness for collaboration, having previously worked with the likes of Massive Attack, Nadine Shah, Maximo Park’s Paul Smith and Damon Albarn’s Africa Express, in this instance he says: “The word collaboration is an interesting one. All the artists on there are singing my lyrics so I wouldn’t class it as a true collaboration. I’m too much of a dictator to allow true collaboration on my own work. But I’ve always loved the marrying of two voices over music, especially the male-female duality, so it’s something that I like to do in that respect.

“I guess on this particular record it’s a bit more subtle, it’s not so obvious. There are clear verses being sung by other people but I kind of wanted it to be more of an additional layer than ‘here’s a feature’.”

As a writer, he says he sees his role as chronicler of society and its problems, rather than one with ready solutions. “I feel mine is very much more of a reportage type role. I’m quite philosophical musically, lyrically or creatively, but I don’t claim to have any answers. I think it’s important to question things and maybe the answer will come down the line way beyond the actual question posed in a record or song. That feels like my job rather than ‘I’ve got all the answers, listen to me’.”

In June it will be ten years since the first Ghostpoet EP, The Sound of Strangers, was released. Although his early recordings were praised at the time, Ejimiwe now looks back on them with some embarrassment. “I think they were terrible,” he laughs. “But the thing is, they were of the time. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

“It was definitely a reflection of the times and for that when I do listen back to it occasionally, I listen fondly but I guess I’ve just become more of a music nerd and I hear all the mistakes. They were meant to be there but it’s hard to listen to it myself personally.”

He’d begun writing music while studying at university in Coventry, a far cry from his roots in south London. He discounts the idea that he discovered his writing voice at an early stage. “No, I’m still discovering my writing voice now,” he says. “I think that I’m a good writer, but I want to be a great writer, and that is still to come.

“The initial pen to paper, so to speak, was definitely in Coventry but I was at the time trying to work out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. Now it’s a case of becoming more open and concentrated with my words, which just takes time and practice and life experience. I still think I’m on that journey.”

A few years ago, Ejimiwe escaped the “claustrophobia” of London by moving to Margate, where he and his partner set up a bar/coffee shop and radio station that was part crowdfunded. He says “personal stuff” brought him back to the capital but it seems he misses the small creative community he found in Kent. “There was, and still is, a lot of creative people there. I was able to create a radio station and open a shop for a bit.

“I’m starting up a radio station again with a friend who still lives there and that’s something that I want to pursue down the line. It was a great period of time for me there, I learned a lot and realised that I love the idea of not living in a city. I love London to a certain extent but I feel I’m much more at home near nature, so that’s something I want to return to at some point.”

The cancellation of several festivals has left Ejimiwe with an empty schedule for the next few months. He says he is going to miss live music this summer. “I love playing live, and it’s the manner of it happening that’s hard to take. But currently I still have a European and a UK tour lined up at the end of the year. If it happens I’ll be very happy but there’s no guarantee, not from my side but what our Government decides what is right for citizens. I can’t wait to get back to it at some point. I think it will be a joyous experience.”

Ghostpoet is due to play at Live at Leeds festival on November 28.

I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep is out today. www.ghostpoet.co.uk