Sketches and Spells by The Focus Group is now available on vinyl, as well as pre-existing CD, downloads and streams.
The Focus Group is the recording alias for Ghost Box co-founder and well respected graphic designer and film maker Julian House. This debut album was first release in 2005 on a burn to order CD-R. Now packaged in a 4 panel digipack with the original sleeve art by Julian House that established the rules for the primary Ghost Box artwork layout. It’s a design grid that the label has continuously revisited and tinkered with ever since.
“...it often sounds like hip hop if it had been invented in England in the late fifties. House turns library music's 'science of mood' against itself by creating barely classifiable emotions (macabre whimsy, pensive rapture, 'reverie and efficiency') or making atmospheres clash and mingle like colours on a paint wheel going muddy.”
Simon Reynolds,
Retromania
“Intimately acquainted with this uncertain hinterland between yesterday and tomorrow, The Focus Group are also smart enough to realise that anyone can pass for modern if they still listen to Pierre Henry, Tom Dissevelt, Jacques Loussier or Dave Brubeck.”
Ken Hollings,
The Wire