Description
Lea Kampmann makes expansive work of hushed intimacies on her new single, ‘Ghost’. The second advance release from the Faroe Islands artist’s incoming debut album, If I Ever Made You Cry, I’m Sorry, ‘Ghost’ is an exquisite alt-pop evocation of splendid isolation, mounted with tonal balance and poise. Introspective and embracing, spare and dramatic, it builds in controlled electro-pop intensity towards a cathartic climax, where specific and universal longings for connection merge in one elegant stroke.
In writing the song, Kampmann made her own outside connection. She found a simpatico co-writer in Greta Svabo Bech, the Faroese alt-pop musician whose previous collaborators include Deadmau5 and the composer Ludovico Einaudi. As Kampmann explains, “Greta is an extremely talented singer and songwriter, who I look up to and get inspired by a lot. So it’s really an honour, and almost a dream come true, to have written this track with her.”
The song’s roots lie in a different kind of dream. “I had a dream where I had died,” says Kampmann, “and my loved ones found my dead body, but I was still there in the room as a ghost. And I watched them watching me being dead, and I tried to scream to them, I tried to reach them and tell them that I was still here, but they couldn’t hear me and they couldn’t see me. And I felt the most lonely ever.”
Accompanied by a spectral video from Faroese director Vár Samuelsen, the result is a lush leap forward for Kampmann, whose debut EP, Common Blue (2017), banked her the ‘Artist of the Year’ award at 2018’s Faroese Music Awards. Since then, her releases have included the rainy-day devotional of ‘Sail’ (2019). Later, 2020 saw the release of ‘Higher’, another inviting teaser for the deep, warm mood-pop of If I Ever Made You Cry, I’m Sorry, due for release in 2022.
Until then, a modern expression of timeless yearnings awaits on ‘Ghost’. As Kampmann describes it, “We wrote the song from this feeling of isolation. Feeling invisible and lonely, even though you’re/I’m surrounded by a lot of people. Feeling like a ghost.” For anyone who knows that feeling, ‘Ghost’ is here for you.
Released on the following formats:
Digitally on all major platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.). You can check it out on the player below.
