5 artists to check out if you love Ghost Nation

The Spotify "fans also like" section is a useful tool and also a mediocre one. It's good at finding artists in the same genre tag. It's bad at finding artists that share something harder to describe, the specific texture that makes Ghost Nation sound like Ghost Nation.

So this is my list. Five artists I actually listen to when I've overplayed the Ghost Nation catalog and need something in the same emotional register. Each one has a real reason. No filler.

1. Phantogram

If Ghost Nation has a spiritual sibling, it's Phantogram. Same duo format (one vocalist, one producer, though the roles overlap more in Phantogram's case). Same taste for moody, cinematic production sitting under pop songwriting. Same willingness to let a track breathe for ten seconds before the vocal comes in.

Start with You Don't Get Me High Anymore from their 2016 album Three. It sits in the exact pocket where most Ghost Nation tracks live. A big chorus that refuses to act big. A production that's polished but not clean. And Sarah Barthel's vocal has the same kind of restrained intensity Tomas uses.

If you liked Unforgiven, you will like this song. If you didn't, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Banks

Banks is the closest comparison I can make for what Ghost Nation does with vocal performance. There's a specific quality where the singer sounds emotionally exposed but technically contained. Not whispering, not belting, something in between that most singers can't pull off.

Try Brain from Goddess (2014), or Gimme from III. The production is usually more stripped-back than Ghost Nation's, more R&B-leaning, but the emotional temperature is the same. She's also got the thing where the song sounds like a confession to a specific person who will never hear it.

Fans of Lost especially should try this. Same 2am energy.

3. Massive Attack

Stay with me here. Massive Attack is a trip-hop act from Bristol, they've been around since before half the people reading this were born, and they sound nothing like Ghost Nation on the surface.

But listen to Teardrop or Angel from Mezzanine (1998) and you start to hear the connection. That specific thing where a beat sits just slightly behind the grid, where the bass is more felt than heard, where the vocal floats over the production instead of riding on top of it. A lot of modern cinematic pop descends from what Massive Attack figured out in the 90s. Ghost Nation is part of that lineage whether they'd call it that or not.

If you want to understand why Ghost Nation production sounds the way it does, spend an afternoon with Mezzanine. It's the source code.

4. Aurora

Aurora is Norwegian, and there's a shared Scandinavian quality to how she builds songs that lines up with Ghost Nation. A certain patience. A willingness to sit in a mood without needing to resolve it. Production that prefers space over layers.

Running with the Wolves and Runaway are the obvious entry points, but for Ghost Nation fans I'd actually point at The River or Cure for Me. Same dynamic range. Same trust in the listener. Same refusal to treat a pop song like a marketing exercise.

Aurora is also a good reminder that the Nordic music scene has been quietly producing this specific flavor of cinematic pop for over a decade. Ghost Nation isn't an anomaly. They're part of a scene.

5. Woodkid

Woodkid is the most cinematic of this list, which fits, because Ghost Nation's sound has always leaned cinematic. Woodkid's production is enormous, orchestral, built for big moments. Ghost Nation pulls back where Woodkid pushes forward. But the source material feels related.

Run Boy Run and Iron from The Golden Age (2013) are the starting points. If you want something closer to Ghost Nation's restraint, try Goliath from S16 (2020). The way he builds a song around a single motif and lets it carry the weight is very much in the Ghost Nation playbook.

This is also the recommendation most likely to become your new favorite artist, depending on how you feel about orchestral builds. Warning given.

Honorable mentions

A few more, briefly.

• Lykke Li for the Swedish connection and for I Follow Rivers, which has the same grounded vocal style Tomas uses.
• The Knife for the weirder, harder end of Scandinavian electronic pop. Not for everyone. For some people, instantly everything.
• Nine Inch Nails if Insane is your favorite Ghost Nation track. Start with The Fragile. Don't rush it.
• Ruelle for the cinematic-TV-placement adjacent stuff. Less emotionally complex but sonically in the family.

How to use this list

Don't try to binge all five. That's a recipe for everything blurring together. Pick one. Spend a week with it. Then come back and pick the next.

The other thing. None of these artists sounds exactly like Ghost Nation. That's the point. "Exactly like" recommendations are useless. You already have Ghost Nation. You want artists that share the same DNA but express it differently. That's what this list tries to be.

Let me know in the Wall which ones stuck. I'll probably do a second list eventually, covering the adjacencies I didn't hit here (Robyn, CHVRCHES, maybe even some of the darker French pop). But this is the five I'd start with.