GHOSTKEEPER TO RELEASE BALLOON MOON, OCTOBER 27, 2026 VIA VICTORY POOL RECORDS
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PAST PRAISE FOR GHOSTKEEPER
“a re-conjuring of joy that mingles with wounds past and present, thrusting them to the forefront of a musical partnership that spans decades, land, time and space. … amongst the tapestry woven by Cîpayak Joy's multilayered extension of contemporary electronica, Ghostkeeper's past, present and future dance hand in hand.” Exclaim!
“The pop experimentalists return to their roots while pushing their creativity forward on new album, Cîpayak Joy.” RANGE Magazine
Photo Credit : Jared Sych // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Balloon Moon is the latest offering from celebrated Métis pop experimentalists Ghostkeeper, their seventh album since emerging onto the scene nearly 20 years ago. The band is based in the Mohkinstsis/Calgary area, which is home to the “confluence” where the Bow and Elbow rivers meet. This historic site provided inspiration and a thematic guiding light for the album, and reflections on their place in the world can be found sprinkled throughout these compelling new songs. Their last album, the critically-acclaimed Cîpayak Joy, was centred around the core duo of founding members Shane Ghostkeeper and Sarah Houle, who built the album from scratch at their home studio, incorporating a degree of experimentation not yet heard on Ghostkeeper albums to date.
Balloon Moon gets the rest of the band – drummer Eric Hamelin and bassist Ryan Bourne (Hair Control, Chad Van Gaalen) – back in the room together, and the results, mostly cooked up collectively in studio, are stellar. The album's first single “Mohkinstsis” was recently featured by the CBC as one of “4 songs you need to hear to celebrate Indigenous History Month”, and its fond reminiscences of the core duo's early days together set the tone perfectly for an album that explores both the world around them as well as more abstract, introspective musings.
Today, they share the title track from the album. “The ‘Balloon Moon’ is a sacred talisman that rises to give me light, hope and inspiration when I need it most,” explains Shane. “It is the medicinal and protective manifestation of the love between Sarah and I … and it shines even in this grotesque and heartbreaking climate of perpetual colonial/ capitalist desecration of humanity and of our Mother Earth. This song is a prayer for all those who are brutally affected. Hiy Hiy.”
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MORE ABOUT BALLOON MOON
“Scars On Scars” kicks off the album in classic Ghostkeeper fashion, with an intricate, winding weave of guitar and bass lines, at once psychedelically disorienting and catchy as hell. The song quickly settles into a distinctly '70s feel with Hamelin's mercurial drumming moving between a tumbling pattern and a propulsive, backbeat-driven groove. But that description really only gets you part of the way there; once the beat settles in and Ghostkeeper's traces of melody begin to coalesce, there is truly no one else that sounds like this.
“I Want Love” is a feast for fans of the electric guitar, especially of the late '70s variety. The opening lick slyly recalls early tones by The Cars, before shifting into a spiky lick that could have been lifted from Robert Quine's masterful playing on Richard Hell's punk classic Blank Generation. “Tomb Rose” and “Love and Free Will” (which also features additional guitar from session ace JJ Mayo) also feature this prickly, ear-grabbing playing style, and also hearkens back to some of the earlier Ghostkeeper albums, albeit with the benefit of a decade of constant evolution and boundary-pushing.
The album takes a turn into the most angular corner of the album on “Tomb Rose”, a careening series of tightly synced band figures, funk guitars, and some impressive moves on the bass courtesy of Ryan Bourne. The vocals wander across this complex tapestry of band action, alternating between smears of analog delay trails and tightly arranged layers of stacked vocal harmonies.
Balloon Moon features two mini-songs tucked into its tracklist; “Every Wild Flower” is a brief dip into a doo-wop adjacent reverie, lovingly tripped out with tape vari-speed manipulations, clacking castanet percussion, and layers of vocals moving around the stereo field. “Across A Vast Vast Distance” provides another moment of respite with an undulating, ambient soundscape providing an immersive background for a brief passage of ominous spoken word.
WATCH / SHARE “MOHKINSTSIS” HERE
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“Blot Out The Sun” begins in a more straightforward manner, recalling Shane's solo work under his own full name, before morphing into one of the trippier, more immersive listening experiences on Balloon Moon. This is not a shocking avenue for the band to explore; all members share a penchant for experimental approaches to music and sound, drawing inspiration from musique concrète (the practice of using sound itself as musical material), free jazz, and film score sound design. “We wanted to figure out how we can make things more unpredictable while still remaining tasty,” Ghostkeeper says. Jay Crocker (aka JOYFULTALK), a longtime collaborator and former band member, mixed the album and played a powerful role in this regard. “Working with Jay always turns out to be something you never expected, and sometimes I'm even nervous before putting on a mix for the first time,” Shane laughs, “but it always turns out to be amazing and sounds like nothing else.”
The album was produced by Josh Rob Gwilliam, head honcho at OCL Studios. The addition of Gwillam in the producer's chair was a sea change moment for Ghostkeeper, having previously worked with only a small cast of familiar players in this role. At first, there was a fleeting moment of apprehension at bringing someone new into the fold, but that feeling quickly evaporated, thanks in part to what Shane calls Gwillam's “old school studio bedside manner”. Balloon Moon carries the distinction of being the least pre-planned of any of the band's albums, and while this was an intentional choice to keep things fresh and intuitive, “Josh sensed my mild anxiety at not having every last detail ready to go,” Shane says with a laugh. But this allowed the producer to contribute in meaningful and unexpected ways; as the band created parts and arrangements in the moment, “he knew when to step in with a suggestion, or simply let us grind it out on the spot,” Shane remembers. “Every Wild Flower” and “Tomb Rose” are great examples of this synergistic pairing; “he helped us build layers and layers of vocals built right on the spot. Nothing was planned, but the vibe and chemistry in the room was just so good, it felt effortless.”
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Album closer “To The Earth” is another deep dive into the world of abstract sound and free-flowing, expressive rhythm that has clearly grabbed Ghostkeeper's attention on Balloon Moon. Featuring the sole vocal from founding member Sarah Houle, sitting atop a wordless melody from Shane, the song has an incantory quality, with Hamelin's constantly permutating rhythms swirling around layers of keyboard drones. “I pushed Hamelin to be as busy as he wanted to be on of these tracks,” Shane says, and as a drummer who can pull off everything from a straightforward backbeat to beautifully dense free-jazz maelstroms of sound, we are treated here to his finest moments on a Ghostkeeper album to date.
Balloon Moon is both a return to form, of sorts, and also a bold new step forward. The album bristles with the immediacy that one can achieve through collective, real-time collaboration in a comfortable and open studio environment, and also benefits from the presence of a real, working, organic unit of players guided by a steady hand in the production chair. This is a vital and compelling band working at the top of their powers, and it will be a joy to see these songs come to life onstage in the coming months.
BALLOON MOON TRACKLIST
01 Scars on Scars
02 Mohkinstsis
03 I Want Love
04 Every Wild Flower
05 Tomb Rose
06 Blot Out The Sun
07 My Child
08 Love And Free Will
09 Across A Vast Vast Distance
10 Balloon Moon
11 To The Earth
