Michael Plater is a U.K-based Australian experimental/folk/psych/indie/noir musician and multi-instrumentalist.
His first two solo albums “Exit Keys” (2012) and “Mythologies” (2016) received world-wide critical acclaim, with “Mythologies” being re-released in the U.K in 2018 through cult British folk/psyche/drone label Reverb Worship. In recent years, he has also released music on such labels as Hypostatic Union (U.K), Dub Cthonic (U.K), Woodford Halse (U.K), Hibernate (U.K), Laily Recordings (U.K), and More Than Folk Records (France).
Michael has played in the U.K-based dark folk ensemble GhostShips, the ambient project Ghosts of Electricity, the Gothic soundscapes act The Northern Lighthouse Board, Melbourne garage rockers The Exit Keys, and folkloric collective Cornish Wreckers. His highly-acclaimed latest solo album, “Ghost Music,” is out now on Hypostatic Union.
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“Ghost Music” takes inspiration from Australia’s dark history and the myths, folklore, and legends of Michael’s current adopted home in Cornwall, drawing together a phantasmagorical assemblage of ghosts, seafarers, convicts, spirit mediums, smugglers, alchemists, and lighthouse keepers.
Recorded between 2019 and 2021 at No Recording Studio in Essex, the album is dedicated to the late John Hannon (Liberez, Woe), who recorded, produced and played everything from violin, harmonium, harmonica, clarinet, to bagpipes on the album. The album also features crucial contributions from Stafford Glover (Enclosed & Silent Order, Extreme Noise Terror), who co-wrote two of the songs and plays an equally varied collection of instruments, including bass, autoharp, organ, doorframes and piano lids. "Ghost Music" also features guest appearances from Mark Kluzek, Tony Millman, and Fawnia Mountford, with additional technical assistance from the legendary Mark Beazley (Rothko), and Julian Wright. The album was mastered and pressed to lathe cut vinyl by the extraordinary Michael Lawrence at Bladud Flies!
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Selected Press:
“The U.K.-based Australian experimentalist has reached the apex of his creative arc with 'Ghost Music'...These songs are too tender to burn the heart: they melt it instead...Ghost Music isn't a record you choose. Boasting songs that feel as though they were written for your ears only, it chooses you. It's not true of course, but that's how great storytellers sink their hooks in, and Plater is most certainly that.”
(#4 Albums of the Year 2023, Sun 13, U.K)
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“He's managed to create a suite of songs that sonically match the stories being told in that they drip with mystery, tension, drama, darkness and foreboding. You could almost imagine these tales being told in hushed tones, in a dimly lit corner of a cliff top inn while the wind and rain lash against the windows outside. Many of the songs grow in intensity as they slowly unfurl themselves, as with the opening 'Gathering Feathers' and the epic, atmospheric 'St John's Eve'. Second track 'This Waking Dream' has the same bleak feel as 'On the Beach' era Neil Young while other tracks suggest the dark majesty of The Velvet Underground. Balancing this is the heartbreak and beauty of the ghostly 'Katie King,' the skeletal 'Your Family Ghosts' and the piano-led, whispered vocal of 'Burning Windmills', all delivered in a voice that occupies a similar frequency range to that of Stuart Staples of Tindersticks.”
(Ghost Music Album Review, The Smelly Flowerpot, U.K)
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“Ghost Music is fantastic cinema for your inner ears, and a beautifully exciting album of enchanted tales.”
(Ghost Music Album Review, MangoWave, Germany)
“Michael Plater should be out there touring the world and releasing a revelatory new disc every year…we're lucky to have him,”
(Robert Brokenmouth, I-94-Bar)
“Multifaceted and very emotional...bewitching,”
(Mythologies album review, Gezeitenstrom Musik Magazine, Germany)
“Beautiful and timeless...Music that breaks your heart,”
(Peek-a-Boo Magazine, Belgium)
“One of the most absorbing and arresting players around,”
(B-Side Magazine, Australia)
“Late-night indie rock 'n' roll, dark folk influences, woozy dreampop atmospherics, and a generous helping of Gothic Americana,”
(Bliss Aquamarine, U.K)
“His seemingly sweet music approaches you almost tenderly, then comes the deep, deep voice, somewhere between Nick Cave and Johnny Cash. A voice that carries a real melancholy, supported by an insistent but discreet piano...exciting, rock and roll and lyrical,”
(New Box Magazine, France)
“Lost between dark folk, gothic Americana and dark rock...his songs are made of that sweet melancholy that we know so well…at once familiar and reassuring, like an old friend who comes to visit you when a rainy horizon weighs on your soul.”
(Mithra Templezine, France)
“Michaels warm, very melodious and deep voice exudes a draft of a special kind and creates goosebumps.”
(Independent Sounds, Germany)
“Listening to Michael Plater's music, the names that come to mind are Nick Cave, Nikki Sudden (in his 'solo works'), Lou Reed ... Intimate folk-blues ballads, with an underground taste...a songwriter with talent...Heartfelt music from a sensitive soul, surely. Very good work.”
(Sudden Art Music Magazine, Italy)
“Fantastic and melancholic songs, sung with his strong and expressive voice”
(Mythologies album review, At Sea Compilations, Germany)
“Michael has a way with his guitar style, he has this swaying, rhythmic melody, letting the tones and the flesh of his
sound speak, building in stages and degrees, moving so strongly that you think he’s about to curl into his guitar,”
(live review, Metro Hotel, Robert Brokenmouth, I-94-Bar)
“This album is intense, dramatic, scary, funny, amazing. The entire production is incredibly well made. Everything
works perfectly…one of the most original records released this year,”
(5/5 Exit Keys album review, Vents Magazine, Dominican Republic)
“Whether solo or with a band, his sound has usually combined a version of Gothic, Southern alt. country with something quite quirky and antipodean … Well worth checking out if names like Reed, Cohen, Cave and Waits already feature in your record collection,”
(4/5 Exit Keys album review, Leicester Bangs, U.K)
Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/michaelplatermusic
Michael Plater Bandcamp:
http://michaelplater.bandcamp.com/
Michael Plater Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/michaelaplater
Michael Plater Facebook artist page:
https://www.facebook.com/michaelplatersolo
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