A Head Full of Wishes

A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.

<-- back to home


Categories: damon & naomi my record collection

My record collection
#074: Damon & Naomi - With Ghost (CD)

Damon & Naomi had covered Ghost’s “Awake in a Muddle” on their third album Playback Singers and had performed live with them before this full album collaboration came about, so it wasn’t a surprise when in April 2000 news leaked out that they had been recording together at their home studio.

Damon & Naomi with Ghost (CD)
Damon & Naomi with Ghost (CD)

WE FIRST MET the Japanese band Ghost in 1995; despite any language barriers, we understood one another immediately and soon became friends. We have since toured together in both the U.S. and Japan, and on occasion Ghost has joined us on stage to play our songs. After a show like this in Tokyo in the fall of 1998, we decided to record an album together. Over the course of the following year, we sent our new songs to Japan, and Ghost sent back ideas for production and arrangements. They also sent music for a new song of theirs, to which we added lyrics. Then, in the last days of 1999 and the first of 2000, Ghost came to our studio to record this album, and celebrate the New Year, together.

Damon & Naomi with Ghost sleeve notes.

The album was released on CD by Sub Pop in a sweet tri-fold digipack that showed off Naomi’s design and photos - this is probably my favourite Damon & Naomi sleeve and the one I’d rip-off when I made sleeves for my bootlegs.

It’s also probably my favourite Damon & Naomi album, although that’s a list that changes often. It always frustrated me somewhat that More Sad Hits would routinely get almost all the votes in the annual survey, I suspect mostly because it was the only album that lots of folk had. Not that MSH isn’t a great album, but I couldn’t help feeling that if more people listened to With Ghost more people would love it.

Back then Sub Pop produced a little With Ghost microsite - it annoyed the archivist in me that when a new album came along the old website was thrown out and replaced. Thnakfully the Wayback Machine is, as it so often is, our friend, so we can go back and see what the web looked like for D&N back then… and what treats were in store:

No idea where I bought this - but it would have been pretty close to release day!