Theory Of Ghosts take their name from a song by the self-proclaimed Anglo-French “ghost-rock” group, Piano Magic who, between 1996 and 2016, crafted a cinematic, melancholic and richly emotional sound, at once fragile and immersive. Led by ex-Piano Magic founder, Glen Johnson and long-time guitarist, Franck Alba, Theory Of Ghosts make no less evocative music, weaving a very romantic, European sophisti-pop that echoes the dreamier moments of The Blue Nile and The Durutti Column. Originally a three-piece on their debut extended players, succinctly labelled EP1 and EP2, Johnson and Alba retreated to their rehearsal space as a duo and began utilising a complaisant drum-machine for their minimal backbeats. The songs, driven by Alba’s fluid Fender VI six-string bass and Johnson’s sparse, unfussy guitar, were spacious, lyrical, vivid. In Summer 2024, Johnson suffered a life-threatening brain haemorrhage but miraculously, by early 2025, felt healthy enough to continue with the production of an album. The foundation of new songs was laid by Johnson at his home studio in Crystal Palace and in July 2025, the duo filled their car with guitars and set off to record with Julian Tardo at his Church Road Studio in Hove on the East Sussex coast. Johnson had been a huge fan of Tardo’s own duo, Insides, since their debut album, ‘Euphoria’ came out on 4AD subsidiary, Guernica, in 1993 and to work with not only Julian but his partner, Kirsty Yates, was something of a granted wish. Yates guests on ‘No Contact,’ a bittersweet song about that very modern strategy of disassociation in a bid to protect the self. The Sulphur And The Grey, Theory Of Ghost’s debut album, with a cover designed by Maria Makripoulias, recorded and mastered by Julian Tardo at Church Road Studio, is out today on Second Language Music.

What Glen Says: “Shakespeare And Company is an historical English language bookstore on the left bank of the Seine in Paris, opposite Notre Dame cathedral. I’ve always been something of a Francophile but I’m particularly drawn to the experiences of artists and authors in Paris, through their art and memoirs. This particular bookstore has an esteemed cast of patrons, going back to Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Anaïs Nin. Henry Miller, etc.. Ironically, on my visit there last year, the massive queue outside deterred me from going in, so I had to made do with YouTube documentaries. I sent a copy of the album to the proprietor, Sylvia Whitman, who is referred to in the song, thus “The proprietor is kindly, she’s descended from a saint, her smile would guide a ship in, she is milk upon a plate.”  She sent me a very lovely postcard in response.” 

 

“This song came out of a few different ideas but the main one were the various stories about people who have faked their own deaths. In the back of my mind, I perhaps had François Ozon’s Under The Sand film, about a man who goes for a swim whilst he’s at the beach with his wife and completely disappears. I’ve recently spent quite a bit of time fantasising about similarly starting my life again somehow, selling off everything I own and disappearing, changing my appearance and moving somewhere completely different. This song also has a reference to one of my old friends, Stephen Wood, who died a few years ago. He made sure to choose his own funeral playlist, the finale of which was Slogun by SPK, an intense, old school industrial track, which had everyone crying with laughter. It was like he was saying, “Don’t be sad. We can laugh in the face of death.” 

His Mixtape:


Insides – Darling Effect

In my youth, I was, perhaps not surprisingly, a 4AD obsessive. With a few notable exceptions, I bought everything on 4AD from around 1983 until 1993. Insides were actually signed to a 4AD subsidiary label, Guernica, along with another favourite of mine, Spoonfed Hybrid.  Their debut album, Euphoria, came out in 1993 and although they were most often associated with the British post-rock scene of that time, there’s an otherworldly, erotic beauty to this record that sets them apart from their peers. If I had five seconds to sell this record to you, I’d say it’s a glorious car crash of The Durutti Column, Astrud Gilberto and Philip Glass.  Their most recent album, Soft Bonds is equally essential but if pushed, I have to opt for Darling Effect from Euphoria, which has always sent shivers down my spine and at their recent comeback shows, even made me cry. That we (Theory Of Ghosts) got to work with Julian and Kirsty on our new album, was something of a wish granted.

The Apartments – No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal

On Wednesday afternoons, in my college, mid-‘80s, we could either attend art classes or waste time in the library, reading music magazines. I chose the latter. I recall reading a review of The Apartments album, The Evening Visits…And Stays For Years (what a title!) in NME, something to the effect of “this is an incredibly melancholy record and Ben Watt is on it.”  I was a deeply pensive, melancholy youth in 1985, obsessed with The Smiths and Everything But The Girl’s early work, so I didn’t need my arm twisting on this one. Fast forward to 2015 and my love of The Apartments is re-ignited by a new album called, No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal, a record that wrestles with grief in all its raw, unfiltered, suffocating majesty. Peter Milton Walsh wears his heart on his sleeve more visibly than any other songwriter I know. This song, again, does things to me that I can’t explain. I am often to be found in the kitchen, belting, “And yooooouuuuuu in your Ava Gardner dress, wondering what’s next for youuuuuuu!!!”

Marc & The Mambas – Angels

I’m not sure if there’s a song that speaks to me better than this one has always done. In an ideal world, I’d have this played at my funeral but I think it’d be too cruel on my mourners. My father bought me the first Marc & The Mambas album, from Revolver record shop in Sutton-In-Ashfield, on a snowy day in 1982. I was already a huge Soft Cell fan but the Mambas stuff goes even deeper than the darkest Soft Cell tracks. I would listen to this track, hanging out of the bedroom window, with my ears wide open, taking mental notes, wanting to simultaneously hang out with Marc Almond and be him. And yet, this is fucking dark (“Love me or else because I may die tomorrow and that would prey on your mind forever”).  This is a co-write with Matt Johnson and in 1982, I worshipped at the altar of him and Almond. It was a marriage made in heaven/hell. 

Ezra Feinberg – Future Sand

Ezra Feinberg was the drummer in Piano Magic for about six months in 1998. We recorded one EP together, in a garden shed in Mornington Crescent and then, like a genie, he disappeared, back to America to get on with his life as a psychoanalyst. I didn’t see him again until last night, where he was playing as part of a trio at the Jazz Café in Camden, coincidentally, a stone’s throw away from that garden shed. It was a mesmerising concert, just three instruments hypnotising everyone in the room. Without wishing to sound like a new age hippy, Ezra’s music has a dreamlike ethereality you can float away on and that is desperately needed in these bleak, dark times where everyone wants to anchor you to horror.

 

HTRK – Gilbert And George (30^th Dec rehearsal)

I love HTRK in much the same way that I love Insides – they press all the right buttons on me, as if they’ve been given a manual about how I work. Only, in this manual, there’s a huge section on troubleshooting.  I particularly love that HTRK release their demos and works in progress and as in this case, the demo is actually better than the studio version because there’s still that undefinable raw emotion that is diluted by rehearsing too much. There’s a line in this song about how the artists Gilbert and George eat at the same place every night (true) and “walking East London, there’s a certain type of light,” which inadvertently inspired the Theory Of Ghosts track, London Has Its Own Light.

 

The Declining Winter – Last April

 A little known fact about me is that, for years, I have exchanged emails with Richard Adams from The Declining Winter almost daily. Formerly, we were both in bands (Hood and Piano Magic respectively) that played the same European gig circuit but somehow, our paths barely crossed. Since then, we’ve more than made up for lost time. Like the aforementioned The Apartments, Richard often writes from personal experience, however painful that may be. When he sent me the tracks from his Last April album, I knew I had to release it, not because we were friends but because I feel it’s vital that records like this come out. These are raw, deeply confessional and yes, very, very sad songs about the loss of Richard’s mother and the navigation of his grief. These are the records that get passed over by the music industry and to be frank, by the majority of people, simply because grief isn’t profitable and you can’t dance to it.  As a sidenote, Sarah Kemp is my favourite violinist.

The Durutti Column – Tomorrow

My fondness for Vini Reilly’s work is well-documented. I felt an irresistible magnetism to his music when I first saw The Durutti Column on tv in 1985. I’ve spent the subsequent forty years or so collecting everything I can and Sundays are invariably my quiet days, lost in Reilly. Although Vini himself is often dismissive of what he does, I think he holds a unique position in music, whether he likes it or not. I can’t think of anyone else who can soundtrack rainy days in Manchester as eloquently as sunny afternoons in Lisbon. It could be incidental but his music has a direct line to my soul. Tomorrow is a song of longing, very simple in Reilly terms but spectacularly evocative. We (Theory Of Ghosts) currently cover this in our live set.

The Sulphur And The Grey is out now via Second Language Music. Look HERE for more information on Theory Of Ghosts.