The Pure Conjecture are an indie band with a membership drawn from several old indie notables: one of Brakes, one of Electric Soft Parade, one of Tenderfoot� No Ghosts is kind of a classic pop album, with proper catchy tunes and soft-rock sonics like you might hear on an old radio station. In a really good way. No Ghosts is out on Armellodie.
No Ghosts the third album from the geographically scattered collective, The Pure Conjecture. No Ghosts is the sound of friendship. When the world around collapses, friendship remains that hopeful constant and No Ghosts is the sound of that constant. To eschew the virtues of the individual band members is to forgo a long, deep involvement and affiliation with a number of immense bands. Marc Beatty (Brakes), Joel Gibson (The Tenderfoot) Rose Elinor Dougall, Johny Lamb (Thirty Pounds of Bone) and Matthew Twaites (Electric Soft Parade) are brought together around the writing efforts of front-men Matt Eaton and Darren Moon (a modern day Nanker Phelge without the wrinkles) and within an industry of tempestuous greed and merciless careerism a calm naturally emerges.
Gathering across several London writing and recording sessions in 2016, the band kicked out the jams and found a series of songs that rested in the warmth of Teenage Fanclub and Big Star, sparkled with the hairspray of Hall & Oates and tipped a collegiate Nineties cap to the R&B Heroes of the day (Boyz II Men, Blackstreet). This is also an album with the intelligence to ask questions of itself. Who is the un-contactable �Mr Remote� who seems to run from door-to-door to a pop groove in the realm of Ariel Pink's Haunted Style Council? Who in Jackanory is that singing on �Knock Four Times� and why isn�t he the pastor at the Church of Incredible? Why does he feel inclined to knock four times, when he knocked three times on the band�s debut album, Courgettes? In the title track, �No Ghosts�, the fanfare is summoned and the album burns blindingly bright; harmonies wash over the listener, the vocals glisten and you can hear the amp valves in the guitar solo.
In an age of disposable pop personalities �No Ghosts� is an antidote album that, like the works of the blue eyed soul singers and the Northern Soul artists of the past, will set a hundred first dances adrift and burn themselves into the core of your memory bank (and your record collection).