As founding member and principal songwriter of The Pineapple Thief, Bruce Soord has spent the last decade steadily refining a voice that balances emotional directness with musical restraint.
Written over a two-year period while Soord was touring extensively with The Pineapple Thief, the album emerged in hotel rooms, unfamiliar cities, and moments of enforced solitude. Against this backdrop, Soord was navigating the drawn-out decline and eventual death of his father, alongside the continued progression of his mother's Alzheimer's. These experiences form the emotional spine of Ghosts In The Park - grief in motion, memory surfacing unpredictably, and the quiet determination to keep moving forward.
Acoustic guitar sits at the centre of the record, often captured in raw, first-take performances recorded directly in hotel rooms before being carefully integrated with studio recordings. This tension between fragility and control defines the album's sound. Tracks such as "Concepcion," "Meet Me On The Downs," and the title piece were conceived in specific places - Chile, Hamburg, Oberhausen - each location leaving a subtle imprint on the music. Parks, harbours, and anonymous rooms become recurring settings where past and present coexist, intersected by fleeting moments of clarity amongst the disorder.
Performed almost entirely by Soord himself, with bass contributions from Jon Sykes on "Kept Me Thinking," the album was recorded using a combination of hotel-room captures & studio sessions, preserving the immediacy of its origins. Mastered by Steve Kitch, 'Ghosts In The Park' stands as a stark, reflective and evolutionary companion piece to Soord's acclaimed previous solo work.
