Ghostpoet - I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep (LP) - Clear Vinyl

Ghostpoet’s fifth album arrived in May 2020, right as the first UK lockdown turned daily life into a slow, eerie loop. The timing fit a record that sounds like sleepless nights and city lights bleeding into puddles. Obaro Ejimiwe has been refining this mood since Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam, but I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep leans farther into a post‑punk, noir palette, with guitars that twitch and hum around his talk‑sung delivery. He stays grounded in the real world too, casting a weathered eye on politics, surveillance, and the gnawing anxiety of modern living. It is a heavy listen, but it’s also his most immersive.

“Concrete Pony” sets the tone. A thick, rubbery bassline moves in slow circles while ghostly guitars flicker at the edges. Ejimiwe’s voice carries a calm dread, as if he has already seen the ending and is reporting back from it. He doesn’t waste words. He places them carefully on the beat, letting silence do as much work as sound. “Nowhere to Hide Now” tightens the screws. The drums feel claustrophobic, the guitar lines skitter and dissolve, and the hook lands like a CCTV light snapping on. You can trace a line back to Tricky or early Massive Attack, but the guitars pull it closer to Wire and late‑night Radiohead than trip‑hop nostalgia.

This record thrives on tension. “This Trainwreck of a Life” lurches and staggers, with keys that smear like wet ink. “Rats in a Sack” moves with a slow, queasy swagger, the kind of groove that makes your shoulders lift even as the lyrics pull you inside your head. The music isn’t flashy. It’s carefully built, like a dim room where your eyes adjust and small details start to jump out. Tiny synth whistles, a tremolo guitar, a distant harmony that feels half remembered. Ghostpoet has always been about atmosphere, but here the architecture is meticulous.

Context matters with this album. By 2020 he had already been twice shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, for his 2011 debut and 2015’s Shedding Skin, and he’d edged away from rap toward a style that sits between spoken word and weary croon. Reviews at the time noted how well that shift suited these songs, and the broader mood of the year made the album feel uncomfortably prescient. In interviews around release, he talked about insomnia and social unease feeding the writing, and you can hear it in the clipped phrasing and the patient pacing. He rarely raises his voice. He doesn’t need to.

I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep also rewards the vinyl treatment. The low end is its secret engine, and on a good system the bass blooms while the upper registers stay airy. Spin the I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep vinyl and “Concrete Pony” takes on an extra physicality, that kick drum thumping like it’s coming from the next room. The quieter tracks open up too, with room for those eerie harmonics to hang in the air. If you’re crate digging for Ghostpoet vinyl, this one feels like the late‑night keeper you pull out when the lights are low. It pairs nicely with Dark Days + Canapés on the shelf, and if you’re trying to buy Ghostpoet records online, most shops that specialize in UK indie and left‑field electronic stock it regularly. I’ve even seen copies pop up at a Melbourne record store I haunt when traveling, and a couple of spots that ship vinyl records Australia wide tend to restock after each repress. Ghostpoet albums on vinyl don’t stay in the bins for long, so grab it when you see it.

There’s a lived‑in quality to the production that gives the songs backbone. You can almost picture the band in a small, dim studio, building loops out of simple parts, then distressing them until they feel frayed. The restraint is key. Nothing here shouts for attention. The album behaves like a long exhale, and by the end you feel the weight lifting just a little, as if the night is giving way to a dull grey morning. It isn’t a hopeful record, but it’s humane. It looks the world in the eye.

If you’ve followed Ghostpoet from the beginning, this plays like a culmination. If you’re new, it’s a door into his world, one where mood carries as much meaning as the lines he speaks. In a year full of noise, he found a way to make quiet feel loud.