Ghostkeeper's seventh album is out now, and it feels like a band returning to the room. Balloon Moon landed October 27, 2026 through Victory Pool, eleven songs that turn the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers in Mohkinstsis/Calgary into a quiet guide for place, memory and love.
The band back together
The Métis pop experimentalists have been at this for nearly twenty years. Their last album, Cîpayak Joy, was built at home by the core duo of Shane Ghostkeeper and Sarah Houle, lean and exploratory. Balloon Moon pulls drummer Eric Hamelin and bassist Ryan Bourne back into the same studio, and the Bandcamp notes say most of it was cooked up collectively. Brad Hawkins and Josh Rob Gwilliam recorded. Jay Crocker mixed. Noah Mintz mastered.
That shift matters. The songs still carry the duo's introspective streak, but the full band gives them weight and swing instead of keeping everything close to the speakers. Shane Ghostkeeper wrote the songs. Sarah Houle, Eric Hamelin, Ryan Bourne and Shane perform them. The Bandcamp credits keep the chain short and clear from the room to the master.
Balloon Moon sits in a long run of Ghostkeeper records that treat Métis identity and prairie place as lived detail rather than a slogan. The confluence theme is not decoration. It is how the band talks about meeting points, between people, between past and present, between the city and the rivers that cut through it.
What Balloon Moon sounds like
The album opens on Scars on Scars and moves through Mohkinstsis, a fond look at the duo's early days together that sets the tone for the rest. Eleven tracks make the cut:
- Scars on Scars
- Mohkinstsis
- I Want Love
- Every Wild Flower
- Tomb Rose
- Blot Out The Sun
- My Child
- Love And Free Will
- Across A Vast Vast Distance
- Balloon Moon
- To The Earth
The writing stays with place and people. Reflections on where the band sits in the world sit next to more abstract, inward songs, and the river confluence keeps showing up as theme rather than scenery.
Where to get it
Balloon Moon is available now on the band's Bandcamp page, and Victory Pool carries the catalog through its own Bandcamp shop. Check both for formats and stock.
Our call
This one is Surfacing. A long-running Métis band putting the full lineup back in the room for its seventh album, with a clear sense of place and songs that reward a full listen. If Cîpayak Joy was the home-studio experiment, Balloon Moon is the band record that follows.
Want more from this corner of Canadian experimental music? Start with our Constellation Records starter guide and the ambient essentials, then browse gifts for vinyl collectors if you are building out the shelf.
Ghostkeeper on Bandcamp · Victory Pool · Ghostkeeper artist page · Ghostkeeper discography
