Ghostly Kisses Release New Album 'Darkroom'

Ghostly Kisses has released their sophomore album Darkroom, out now via Akira Records.

Comprised of French-Canadians Margaux Sauvé and Louis-Étienne Santais, the duo became an international sensation with the release of their debut album Heaven, Wait, garnering a cult following overseas, and sharing the stage with Ry X, Men I Trust, Lord Huron, Pomme and more. For their new record, the band launched what they’ve dubbed the "Box Of Secrets" initiative, allowing fans to anonymously reveal their deepest intimacies.

What they discovered was a global, post-pandemic, postmodern era of pain - an intense and strange loneliness felt around the world. Sauvé and her partner Santais synthesized those missives into the mesmeric Darkroom, a record that wills our inner monologue into view, an empowering ode to our collective battles.

On the release, Sauvé shares “Last year, we opened an anonymous safe space for fans to share personal stories about their lives, called The Box Of Secrets. We feel very privileged that fans chose to entrust us with their deepest secrets. We read every message, and it's become the main source of inspiration for this album. So many people at our shows would tell us that they listened to our music through heartbreak, grief, pain, questions they asked themselves, so I thought we should give others a safe space to do the same. For this project, I wanted to live in those themes, those experiences, to make it a multidimensional conversation. For example, we heard from a lot of fans from countries where they couldn’t openly love the person they were in love with, for political or social reasons. I felt that pain, identified with it in my own way, and knew many others would too.”

On the heels of a packed European tour and receiving the Biiblii Award in China for International Track of the Year, Ghostly Kisses North American tour kicks off next week. Tickets available HERE.

Tour Dates

May 23 - Montreal, QC @ Church of the Gesu

May 24 - Ottawa, ON @ Club SAW

May 25 - Quebec City, QC @ Imperial Bell

May 29 - Boston, MA @ Cafe 939

May 30 - Washington, DC @ Songbyrd

May 31 - Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust

June 01 - Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live

June 04 - Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village

June 05 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry

June 07 - Denver, CO @ Globe Hall

June 08 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court

June 11 - Seattle, WA @ Barboza

June 12 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios

June 14 - San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar

June 15 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo

Traditionally, Sauvé and Santais would each set up in a different room, sharing snippets via email and only meeting up to finalize ideas. “Writing separately ensures we’re not influenced by anything else, and we can bring more depth to our process,” Sauvé says. This time, the messages from the “Box of Secrets” provided an unusual baseline for that influence rather than just their own individual experiences, and the result refracts and shimmers kaleidoscopically. After compiling demos, Ghostly Kisses brought in new collaborators to further bolster their new electronic palette: co-producers George FitzGerald (London Grammar, as well as solo work) and Oli Bayston (Boxed In, Yune Pinku). Longtime engineer (and Santais’ cousin) Alex Ouzilleau further helped shape the work in the studio, and Gabriel Desjardins’ string arrangements add depth and drama to the proceedings. To test their boundaries even further, Ghostly Kisses tested their recordings while on tour, a new step in their process and a portal into connecting more with their music and their fans. 

“We heard from a lot of fans from countries where they couldn’t openly love the person they were in love with for political or social reasons,” Sauvé says. “I felt that pain, identified with it in my own way, and knew many others would too.” 

Each track of Darkroom’s magnetic run comprises its own world, with Sauvé’s vocals as the radiant arc connecting their orbits, the moments and themes shared by fans finding resonances—the whole Ghostly Kisses universe together even when expressing its loneliness. In moments, Ghostly Kisses offer an awe-inspiring hope for connection, for love, even when it seems impossible. By opening up their music to be the conduit for other people’s stories, they landed up finding their own. And by doing so through the stories of their fans and in new, more kinetic tones, Darkroom should prompt that same hope in many around the world who may otherwise have felt the darkness creeping too far in.

Ghostly Kisses have just completed a packed tour of Europe, and will embark on their North American tour next week.

Tracklist:

01 There Is No More Space

02 Keep It Real

03 Golden Eyes

04 Lonesome Hero

05 Ocean

06 Calm Down

07 On & Off

08 Silver Screen

09 Crimson

10 Within

11 Beneath The Clouds

12 Carousel

Photo credit: Fred Gervais

To post a comment, you must register and login.