All the Ghosts | ||||
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Studio album by Gwyneth Herbert | ||||
Released | UK: 13 July 2009 (CD); 2010 (LP). US: 8 June 2010 | |||
Genre | Jazz; Singer-songwriter | |||
Length | 37:00 | |||
Label | Naim Edge | |||
Producer | Gwyneth Herbert and her band | |||
Gwyneth Herbert chronology | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
The Daily Telegraph | |
The Guardian | |
Metro |
All the Ghosts, the fifth album by British singer-songwriter Gwyneth Herbert, was released by Naim Edge in the United Kingdom in 2009 and in the United States in 2010. It was critically acclaimed, and received four-starred reviews from The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and Metro.
In early 2008, Herbert was commissioned by a collaborative project between Peter Gabriel and Bowers & Wilkins to record an acoustic album at Gabriel's Real World Studios. The result of these sessions – Ten Lives – was released as a digital download in July 2008, available only from the Bowers & Wilkins website as part of their Music Club.
Remixed versions of these songs were to form the basis of All The Ghosts, which was released by Naim Edge on 13 July 2009 in Europe and on 8 June 2010 in the United States. It was remastered for vinyl by Steve Rooke at Abbey Road Studios, London and reissued in LP format in 2010.
Herbert wrote all the songs, except for a hidden, bonus track – a cover version of David Bowie's "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide".
All but two of the tracks were recorded and engineered by Robin Baynton at Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire. Robert Harder, who had previously collaborated with Herbert as recording engineer of Between Me and the Wardrobe, recorded and engineered "Annie's Yellow Bag" and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" and some additional warbling on "So Worn Out" at his sound studio in London.
The CD cover artwork was by Keemo.
The album was critically acclaimed. Writing for BBC Music, John Eyles said: "Herbert's songs are rightly starting to draw comparisons with those of 60s Ray Davies and Paul McCartney. She has a fine sense of melody and her latest songs... create a cast of inner-city archetypes, each with an intriguing tale to tell. Many of the protagonists are society's losers or victims. Unlike Davies or McCartney, Herbert unfailingly sees the world from a woman's point of view. It is no coincidence that four of the track titles contain women's names".