Ghostpoet’s debut album ‘Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam’ over achieved in many senses. It was a low key release that received wide acclaim and even a Mercury Music prize nomination. So Ghostpoet (aka Obaro Ejimiwe) steps back into the ring for round two, the difficult second one!

‘Some Say I So I Say Light’ differs from what has gone before in some ways, and shows signs of the success that he has achieved, while the instruments are largely electronic, occasionally it swells with a full orchestral sound, strings and wind instruments. The style is slow and languid, and is an album that can easily slip by in the background, but it is worth a closer listen due to the quality in the lyrics (well, he does describe himself as a poet!).

Lyrics like  ‘New day, the usual, but mine stuck in cubicle, top speed, two stepping over puddles, beautiful’ capture the hum drum aspects of life perfectly, in ‘Them Waters’ and there are many other such lines.

The variety of guest vocalists; Lucy Rose on Dial Tones, Woodpecker Wooliams on Meltdown, Charles Hayward on Sloth Trot, Gwilym Gold on Dorsal Morsel and Dave Okumu on Deaf add nicely to the variation on the album. Obaro’s vocal style is somewhere between singing and rapping, but his voice has a low register with subtle variations only. The vocals of Woodpecker Wooliams contrast well against Obaro’s low tones on the lead single ‘Meltdown’, a tale of lost love ‘I don’t mean to disappoint and tear apart, but baby it’s my heart, this time I gotta follow it’.

While the album lacks a track that could break the mainstream (no fist punching anthems contained within!) there’s a clear quality about the lyrics and style of the album. It is a worthy successor to Tricky and others in the English rap/ electronic music scene and is one of those slow burn albums you’ll go back to time after time.

Release date: Monday, May 6th 2013

1. Cold Win

2. Them Waters

3. Dial Tones

4. Plastic Bag Brain

5. Thymethymethyme

6. Meltdown

7. Sloth Trot

8. Dorsal Morsel

9. Msi Musmid

10. 12 Deaf

11. Comatose