#77 - Pure Reason Revolution - Ghosts & Typhoons
Pure Reason Revolution's "Ghosts & Typhoons" from Eupnea - how Jon Courtney and Chloë Alper crafted their emotional comeback masterpiece inspired by premature birth, 10 years after splitting up.
Pure Reason Revolution disappeared for nearly a decade, and when they returned in 2020, few expected what they delivered. Eupnea wasn't just a comeback album—it was born from one of life's most terrifying experiences, and nowhere is that more evident than on the album's emotional centerpiece, "Ghosts & Typhoons."
The story begins in 2017 with Jon Courtney working on what he thought were demos for his electronic project Bullet Height. But something felt wrong. These songs carried a weight and atmosphere that didn't fit his post-PRR direction. When he finally admitted what was happening—that these demos sounded unmistakably like Pure Reason Revolution—he made a phone call that would change everything.
When Life Rewrites Your Plans
The catalyst for Eupnea came from the most unexpected place: a hospital room. Jon Courtney's daughter Jessie was born two months premature, her lungs not fully developed, unable to breathe properly on her own. Weeks stretched into what felt like forever as Courtney and his wife watched their fragile child fight for each breath in the NICU, surrounded by machines that kept her alive.
Eupnea—the medical term for normal, quiet breathing—became both the album's title and its most profound theme. For parents watching their premature baby struggle with something the rest of us do unconsciously, nothing else exists except that simple, essential act.
This experience transformed everything Courtney thought he knew about making music. The electronic experiments suddenly felt trivial compared to the raw human drama unfolding in front of him. The songs that emerged carried the weight of real stakes—life and death, hope and terror, the fragility of everything we take for granted.
Reuniting Through Necessity
When Courtney reached out to Chloë Alper in 2018, suggesting they reform Pure Reason Revolution, it wasn't nostalgia driving the decision. The music demanded it. These songs needed the band's signature blend of male-female harmonies, the balance between crushing heaviness and ethereal beauty that had always been their strength.
The reunion felt both natural and impossible. Both had moved on—Alper was working with other projects, Courtney deep in his Berlin electronic phase—but the connection remained intact. When they began working together again, something clicked that hadn't been there in their final albums before the split.
They also brought back Greg Jong, an original member who'd left in 2005, to collaborate on the opening tracks. This decision connected Eupnea directly to their early masterwork, creating a bridge between who they were and who they'd become.
The Storm Within the Song
"Ghosts & Typhoons" captures the emotional whiplash of hospital vigils with remarkable precision. The track opens in spectral, atmospheric territory before building into what Courtney described as "a nine-minute rollercoaster and surreal odyssey into doom." The comparison he made—"Pink Floyd tussling with Bring Me The Horizon"—perfectly captures the song's DNA.
The production process revealed the intensity driving the music. Courtney's drum programming was so complex that session drummer Geoff Dugmore initially declared it impossible. "Drummers can't do this," he said when presented with the patterns. But through creative overdubbing and Dugmore's considerable skill, they transformed the impossible into something that felt both mechanically precise and organically powerful.
The recording took place across various sessions, with Alper's vocals captured during a particularly hot Berlin summer. The contrast between the oppressive heat and her delicate, soaring harmonies added another layer of tension to an already emotionally charged performance.
Finding Beauty in Chaos
What makes "Ghosts & Typhoons" special isn't just its emotional weight—it's how that weight translates into musical architecture. Every dynamic shift, every moment of crushing heaviness, every delicate interlude serves the larger narrative. The song feels both spectral and turbulent, like its title suggests, moving between ghostly quiet and typhoon-strength intensity.
The track showcases how Pure Reason Revolution had matured as songwriters. Where their earlier work sometimes got lost in complexity for its own sake, "Ghosts & Typhoons" maintains focus throughout its 8:45 runtime. Every element—from the string arrangements by Johanna Kellerbauer to the intricate vocal harmonies—supports the song's emotional journey.
Critics immediately recognized something special. One called it their favorite song of the year, noting how "it feels spectral and atmospheric, but a storm of guitars is ever waiting to unleash its power." The track became a standout on an album full of standouts, proving that the band's decade-long absence had only sharpened their creative instincts.
The Comeback That Mattered
When Eupnea was released in April 2020, it reached #3 on the UK Rock Album Chart and reminded everyone why Pure Reason Revolution had been so important in the first place. This wasn't a band chasing past glories—this was a group with something urgent to say, using every tool at their disposal to say it.
"Ghosts & Typhoons" embodies everything that makes this comeback special: technical sophistication in service of genuine emotion, complexity that never sacrifices accessibility, and the kind of personal stakes that transform good songs into essential ones. The track takes one of life's most terrifying experiences and transforms it into something beautiful without diminishing its power.
For a band that had seemed finished, Eupnea proved that sometimes you need to lose everything to find what really matters. In "Ghosts & Typhoons," Pure Reason Revolution didn't just return—they discovered what they'd been searching for all along.
Notes About "Ghosts & Typhoons" by Pure Reason Revolution
Release Date: April 3, 2020
Duration: 8:45
Genre: Progressive Rock / Alternative Rock / Space Rock
Album: Eupnea (4th studio album, 1st after 10-year hiatus)
Producer: Jon Courtney, with additional production by Greg Jong
Recording Location: Various studios including Berlin sessions
Label: InsideOut Music
Chart Performance: Album reached #3 UK Rock Album Chart
Pure Reason Revolution "Ghosts & Typhoons" Era Band Details
Album Details
Album: Eupnea
Release Date: April 3, 2020
Label: InsideOut Music
Producers: Jon Courtney, Greg Jong (additional production), Chloë Alper (additional vocal production)
Recording Approach: Mix of home demos and professional studio sessions
Commercial Performance: #3 UK Rock Album Chart, critical acclaim as "return to form"
Band Members/Personnel
Jon Courtney - Guitar, Keyboards, Programming, Vocals, Producer, Engineer
Chloë Alper - Vocals, Bass, Keyboards, Guitar, Additional Vocal Production
Geoff Dugmore - Drums (session musician)
Greg Jong - Instruments, Programming, Vocals (tracks 1 & 2), Additional Production
Johanna Kellerbauer - Strings
Production Team
Daniel Bergstrand - Mixing
Lawrence Mackrory - Mastering
Enrico Policardo - Photography
Jill Tegan Doherty - Artwork ("I Am Real, I Am Not Real", 2018, oil on canvas)
Rob Palmen - Management, Booking (Glassville Music)
Video Production
Thomas Hicks - Director ("Ghosts & Typhoons" music video)
Interesting Facts About "Ghosts & Typhoons"
The Impossible Drum Programming Challenge
Jon Courtney's approach to the rhythm section on "Ghosts & Typhoons" pushed technical boundaries in unexpected ways. His drum programming was so intricate that when veteran session drummer Geoff Dugmore first encountered it, he flat-out declared the patterns impossible for human performance. Dugmore, who had worked with artists ranging from Joan Armatrading to Simply Red, wasn't easily deterred though. Through careful layering and creative overdubbing techniques, he managed to not only replicate Courtney's complex programming but enhance it with his own musical sensibilities. The final result sounds both mechanically precise and organically powerful—a fitting metaphor for the medical technology that kept Courtney's daughter alive.
The Berlin Summer Recording Sessions
The vocal sessions for "Ghosts & Typhoons" took place during what Jon Courtney described as "a blisteringly hot Berlin summer," and this detail wasn't just atmospheric color. The oppressive studio conditions became part of the creative process, adding an intensity to Chloë Alper's performance that perfectly matched the song's emotional weight. The contrast between the sweltering recording environment and the delicate, ethereal quality of her vocals created a tension that permeates the entire track. Sometimes the most powerful artistic moments emerge not despite difficult circumstances, but because of them—whether in a hospital watching a premature baby fight to breathe, or in an overheated studio pushing through discomfort to capture something essential.