Neu Ghost Outfit

The one thing that you quickly learn is that all hipsters are fallible; a mixture of bravado and straight-faced lying that just about gets them by. Even the best have some part of their musical past that they’re no especially proud of, less a guilty pleasure, more of a horrible, cringe-inducing secret. For some, it’s the admission that they own the entire discography of Stone Sour, for others it’s the ticket stub that still lingers at the back of a dusty draw, proof that they once went to see The Darkness live in concert. For Manchester duo Ghost Outfit, it’s their glimmering, poptimistic, indie aping debut EP that hung around only slightly longer than their two other members.

The slimming down has, bizarrely, seen them fill out their sound, becoming markedly more confident and infinitely more interesting. Lo-fi is what they’ve termed it, but this is essentially an ode to No Age in all their ramshackle glory, only fragmented into the bands individual parts. Live, they stick with the tried and tested method of making emotion the top priority, the aural sprint through the fleshed out skeletons of their songs. Recorded, however, they channel the more experimental side of their LA forerunners, sampling and looping to make a library of bizarre sounds which they funnel into songs. It’s the latter that’s most arresting, making genuinely interesting electronic noise a world away from the faded hip hop glamour of their peers. Regardless of their shaky history, the future’s looking up with a variety of coveted support slots in and around the rainy city coming their way soon, and an EP on its way too. They’ve certainly made amends.