Comprised of French-Canadians Margaux Sauvé and Louis-Étienne Santais, Ghostly Kisses has become an international sensation, cultivating a cult overseas audience. Fresh off the success of their debut album, Heaven, Wait, and tours supporting Ry X, Men I Trust, Lord Huron, and Pomme, the band launched their ‘Box of Secrets’ initiative, giving fans an anonymous place to share their most personal thoughts. What they discovered was a global, post-pandemic, postmodern era of pain - an intense and strange loneliness felt around the world. Sauvé and her partner Santais synthesized those missives into the mesmeric Darkroom, a record that wills our inner monologue into view, tears falling on the dancefloor only to find mystic connection in the darkest electronic corners.

The duo’s style of writing reflects their ability to bridge the gap between people who may feel far away. Traditionally, Sauvé and Santais would each set up in a different room, sharing snippets via email and only meeting up to finalize ideas. “Writing separately ensures we’re not influenced by anything else, and we can bring more depth to our process,” Sauvé says. This time, the messages from the ‘Box of Secrets’ provided an unusual baseline for that influence rather than just their own individual experiences, and the result refracts and shimmers kaleidoscopically.

After compiling demos, Ghostly Kisses brought in new collaborators to further bolster their new electronic palette: co-producers George FitzGerald (London Grammar, as well as solo work) and Oli Bayston (Boxed In, Yune Pinku). Longtime engineer (and Santais’ cousin) Alex Ouzilleau further helped shape the work in the studio, and Gabriel Desjardins’ string arrangements add depth and drama to the proceedings. To test their boundaries even further, Ghostly Kisses tested their recordings while on tour, a new step in their process and a portal into connecting more with their music and their fans.

“We heard from a lot of fans from countries where they couldn’t openly love the person they were in love with for political or social reasons,” Sauvé says. “I felt that pain, identified with it in my own way, and knew many others would too.” 2023’s standalone single “Golden Eyes” taps into that heartbreak and tragedy in a Björk-esque hypnotic build. Pairing rushing electronic winds with layered vocals panning across the mix, the track pulses to wordless male harmonies reminiscent of Gregorian chants.

Each track of Darkroom’s magnetic run comprises its own world, with Sauvé’s vocals as the radiant arc connecting their orbits, the moments and themes shared by fans finding resonances—the whole Ghostly Kisses universe together even when expressing its loneliness. In moments, Ghostly Kisses offer an awe-inspiring hope for connection, for love, even when it seems impossible. By opening up their music to be the conduit for other people’s stories, they landed up finding their own. And by doing so through the stories of their fans and in new, more kinetic tones, Darkroom should prompt that same hope in many around the world who may otherwise have felt the darkness creeping too far in.