The good old days before the Ghostown started in a Scottish ghost town back in 97 as Rael / Dr Raelskinnt, a one man trip hop band and vocalist. Rael grew up in a musical family where there were always lots of instruments and eastern folk music going on. Being a fan of hip hop and trip hop he started rapping and producing as a teenager using a 4 track cassette tape, keyboard an old sampler and whatever was at hand to produce his first tracks. Collaborating with other musicians around Edinburgh he played locally and at a few festivals
Relocating to Montpellier, France in 2002 he continued to gig and met some new musicians. One problem encountered (apart from the language barrier) was that “Rael” was associated with the crazy alien sect (Raelians) so handing out flyers didn’t go down so well!
Moving through different bits of gear, Yamaha SU10, Yamaha RM1X, Akai S2000, then into software with Acid, Culture Vulture was the fruit of this work, mostly recorded between 2002 and 2004, It features earlier versions of “Insects don’t know” and a few other songs which go on to feature on Reflectionz years later. Culture Vulture features various musicians, Marion Kenny on the flute, Paul Rae on the bouzouki, John Krell on bass, Bob Hilary on guitar, Aynsley Law on sample duty, Anoushka’s vocals on “Wild is the wind”. Lacking funds or backing the album was only ever released as homemade CD and on CC platforms like Jamendo
The name Ghostown was chosen in hommage to the song by the Specials and it seemed an apt name for the phantomatic eerily spooky hip hop type of music that he made, and also fitted in well with his background growing up in a dead end town
Continuing to play frequently in Montpellier Rael ran into DJ Kirsa
at a gig and they jammed together, there was an instant connection, and they started playing together from then on
Later to be joined by Baptizer (Guitar)
bringing a trippy rock edge to the sound the trio started rehearsing and performed more and more around the South of France. They played as a warm up act for Wax Tailor at the Rockstore Montpellier
Then in 2007 due to unforeseen circumstances Rael had to move to Grenoble, it seemed to signal the end for the trio. But luckily the Grenoble public seemed to be a far more enthusiastic public than in the south! They ended up playing pretty much everywhere in Grenoble and also got through to the finals of the Diesel U Music awards in 2007
Reflectionz was the fruit of this work with guitars and turntablism featuring heavily. Tracks like “Ghostown” and “Reflections” took you on a journey through multiple atmospheres within the same song. Reflections (which samples his Mum and Paul Rae on guitar/bouzouki) went on to be used in various snow board videos, climbing, skating and local tourism. The last song on the album “Accordeon” was initially not going to be on it as Bat and Jay hadn’t really prepared anything for it. The song features Rael’s brother Lewis Powell on the accordion, the song starts with just the accordion and rap for about 8 measures before the beat drops in. The song went on to be the most listened to Ghostown song yet
The next few years were pretty difficult due to financial obligations and having to do a real job! It took a while for the next album Spektah Gadjo (2013) to be released. taking some of its cues from Reflectionz but taking things further into a balkan gypsy direction. There was the Frenglish Franglais humour of “French seamen”, the head bopping “Earnith Toasteth” and another accordion track “Breton Spook Dub” again sampling his Mum
The next few years saw few gigs, but big gigs
It took a long time to get round to a new album, gear wise Rael went through a Yamaha Motif, AKAI MPC1000, before finally discovering the Elektron Octatrack, this machine was a revolution, the possibilities with samples were endless, he then went on to get other Elektron boxes, the Machinedrum, the analog4, the Rytm.
This was also a period of collaboration. Rael had met fellow artists Degiheugi, L’omelette (later to become Habstrakt) Monsieur Grandin and Hubwar on the Electrobel website. he also went on to collaborate with UHT° and L’oeuf Raide
In 2017, after 12 loyal years Rael decided to bin machines in favour of a Mac
This enabled him to more easily mix and master productions from home. this combined with the possibility of releasing music digitally meant that the next years would be much more productive. Releasing the Raingods EP in 2018, 20 years after the first Raingods demo was recorded in a studio back in 98, the EP features some of the original samples from the time, but also reworks the song into 3 distinct flavours
Next was Shanksville later on in 2018, it continued the themes of Spektah but also went back to a darker note more akin to Reflections. It contained countless sounds from the sadly sold Elektron trio. Tracks like “Wound up dead” deliver a dry dark humour, whereas Ida is a more autobiographical piece. A lot of the tracks experiment with dub sounds and feels.
Wuchak in 2019 was largely based on forgotten/abandoned projects prior to Shanksville, and again the Electrons feature heavily (Analog4 on Who’s dub and Who’s step, Circus). Tightrope again samples his other and brother in an interesting mix of instruments and beats.
The last few years have seen the artist engaging in a new art form which is video editing, being the shy type the videos mostly consist of samples of films and series, it requires hours of watching time in order to find the right material, then the editing, but the end result is worth every effort.
2020 The Johnny Tapes regrouped 5 different versions that had evolved over the years.
Album N°6 in 2020 Pedro Gordo working with the curiously demented samples of multi instrumentalist Pedro Gordo
n7 2021 MCMCXXIX - More rock and electro inspired
N8 2021 Spektah Revisited
N9 2022 The Cure ....An album based around the classical acoustic guitar, a more peaceful gentle approach
N10 2023/24 Accordion Crimes
