On his first two albums, Obaro Ejimiwe sounded like a sunken-eyed nightcrawler who would never find peace. On his excellent third outing he's hasn't quite gone all sunshine and light but he taken the advice of recent collaborator Brian Eno and recorded with a full live band.
It's given the Coventry-born singer a warmer and more spacious sound on an album of nocturnal atmospherics, wry observations and melodies that emerge slowly from multi-layered and hypnotic arrangements.
Ghostpoet's own narcotic drawl, all gruff and bemused, is intriguing and the addition of guest vocalists, including Nadine Shah, Etta Bond, the great Melanie De Biasio, and Maxïmo Park’s Paul Smith, add to the mystique.
It's a long day's journey into night but Ejimiwe's very wry and dry sense of humour comes to the fore on break-up songs like That Ring Down the Drain Kind of Feeling, which marries harp, a loping beat and guitar grind, and Be Right Back, Moving House, which has all the canny commercial allure of Alt-J and Django Django.
Unsettling, inventive and immersive, Shedding Skin is a warped lullaby for the weird at heart.
Alan Corr
