GHLOW is the musical project of Emille de Blanche and Nikolay Evdokimov, the former is a sculptor with a classically trained musical background, while the latter, an artist in his own right as a tattooist, hails from Russia and started out in politically-infused rock outfits like Scang around the time the Soviet Union fell. Meeting by chance in the Swedish capital os Stockholm, they bonded over similar influences, and a shared appetite for discovering and creating new sounds. Their new album Levitate drops on March 8th via PNKSLM Recordings (Beach Skulls).

Their album Slash and Burn marked an ending and a beginning, the closing of GHLOW’s first chapter and the opening of a new one. This turning point comes in the way that the album provides compelling evidence for the potency of the songwriting partnership between de Blanche and Evdokimov, who knew, having produced such a searing debut, that they could trust both each other, and themselves, moving forward. “We asked ourselves, “how deep do we want to go?” says Evdokimov of the early stages of working on a follow-up. “How many opportunities and possibilities are there?”

“After Slash and Burn, the lines of communication were really opened up between us,” he elaborates. “At the start of this project, we wanted to have the freedom to do whatever came naturally to us. We were never going to make the same record five times. But after the first one, we felt ready to make something that went deeper, emotionally. And this album was born out of beautiful conversations, and deep talk, about every choice that we made.”

The record in question is Levitate, a sequel to Slash and Burn that maintains that record’s sense of urgency whilst also finding room for experimentation and artful reflection. The level of trust between the pair that their debut had cemented is reflected in the way the record came together, with the band eschewing all outside assistance and instead putting their faith in themselves.

Levitate was written, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered entirely by de Blanche and Evdokimov in their Stockholm studio, and the result is akin to listening to a creative collaboration blossom in real time. “We took the risk to trust ourselves on this one,” explains de Blanche. “We knew we could base it just on what was inside of us – we weren’t thinking about outside influences. We dug these songs out of ourselves. I trust you, you trust me – let’s forget about the outside world and make something for us, that we want to hear.”

GHLOW
Levitate
PNKSLM

1. Big City
2. Lost My Mind
3. Levitate
4. Bring It Down
5. Dust
6. Golden
7. Radiate
8. Tricky
9. Slide
10. Sparks

Pre-order Levitate by GHLOW HERE