Eli Marsh · Sable Voss · Est. Duluth 2017
Garment & Ghost formed in Duluth, Minnesota in the winter of 2017. Eli Marsh had a box of cassette recordings and a habit of writing songs about objects. Sable Voss had a car, a destination, and nothing else. They met at a folk night, drove west together, turned around somewhere in South Dakota, and started a band instead.
The name comes from something Eli's grandmother used to say: "Every closet has a garment and a ghost." Neither of them could shake it.
Their debut record Custos was recorded in Eli's childhood bedroom over a single winter weekend in 2019 — 200 copies on CD-R, no label, no plan. It found its audience slowly, then all at once. The Soft Infrastructure followed in 2021, a quieter and more restless record about rooms and thresholds and the architecture of staying. In January 2023, they drove to Chicago, walked into Electrical Audio, and made the loud record they'd been not-making for four years.
"Every closet has a garment and a ghost. We just couldn't decide which one of us was which." — Eli, Splinter Zine, 2019
Grew up in Duluth. Studied nothing useful. Spent two years carrying cassettes in a shoebox before Sable made him do something with them. Writes songs about objects, then about rooms, now about people. Replacing his Martin with a Telecaster was the hardest thing he's ever done.
Plays a Gibson J-45 and a Fender Telecaster (sunburst). Still owns the Martin. Can't let go.
Originally from Fargo. Was driving somewhere else entirely when she stopped in Duluth. Plays a 1994 Rogue lap steel she's never had repaired despite it probably needing it. The editor, the anchor, the one who knows what a song needs before the song does.
Has been right about every musical decision they've ever disagreed about. Eli will admit this if you ask him directly.
Rook Pallister — drums. Session drummer who joined for Cordless and never really left. First time in the room with them; indispensable by the second day. Based in Chicago.
Bass TBD. We're working on it.