Since recovering from a life-threatening medical event that occurred in 2024, Glen Johnson has been making up for lost creative time, most notably in picking-up on his post-Piano Magic projects once more.
In 2025 this led to delivering a largely wordless debut full-length with the amorphous Statues In Fog, as reviewed on these pages. Now in 2026 he brings us the first album from the more songs-based Theory Of Ghosts.
Previously operating as a trio across two EPs, but now pared-down to a twosome with fellow multi-instrumentalist and erstwhile Piano Magician Franck Alba – with room left open to guest contributors – Johnson properly cements this venture as a substantial yet subtly enigmatic proposition on The Sulphur And The Grey.Recorded partly in his home set-up and then fleshed-out in the Hove studio run by Julian Tardo (of onetime Guernica-signed duo Insides), the collection finds Johnson returning to a combination of beloved vintage 4AD, Factory Records and Les Disques du Crépuscule aesthetics, as well as his bleakly romantic and dark-witted lyrical lexicon. He’s also notably recovered access to his higher-register tones, thought lost to late-period Leonard Cohen huskiness.
Meanwhile, Alba decorously joins the dots between Simon Gallup, Peter Hook and Doug McCombs with melodic six-string bass lines and takes over lead vocal duties on a cover of Alain Bashung’s “Madame Rêve”. Additional sonic elements come courtesy of Tardo, his partner vocalist Kirsty Yates, former Piano Magic keyboardist Paul Tornborm and strings player / arranger Yumi Mashiki. The net result is a neatly-distilled pop-noir affair – which includes recuts of prior EP extracts and newer material – that shifts between layered moodscapes and shadowy minimalistic grooves. Hence, in the former respect, proceedings glide through the lush electro-acoustic “London Has Its Own Light”, the oblique mordancy of “Actresses Who Sing”, the hushed introspections of “Some Nights” and the ethereal phasing of “Leaves Upon The Breeze”.In the latter realm, the likes of “Shakespeare And Company”, “When Nobody Knows Who You Are”, “No Contact” and “Blame” find murky sweet spots between The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds, New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies and early Durutti Column.
With contemplations on faking death to start anew incognito, the enduring allure of London, the musical detours of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Scarlett Johansson, lost social connections and cult Parisian book shops all threaded through these sonic matrices, Glen Johnson is clearly unafraid to wander wherever his perennial penchants take him and loyal accomplices. Whilst unlikely to win over many new followers, The Sulphur And The Grey will be comforting in its consistency for those already engrossed in his niche but internally-broad body of work.-Adrian-
