FEATURE: Spotlight: Loraine James — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Loraine James

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IT is interesting discovering…

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Barloc for Loud and Quiet

artists that are really hitting their stride and you know will go far. That is the case with Loraine James. I will pull in a couple of reviews of her latest album, Reflection. Her 2019 sophomore album, For You and I, was lauded and marked her as an Electronic artist to watch closely. As a Black artists in that sphere/genre, perhaps opportunities have been fewer than they would have been for others – imbalance and racial exclusion still exists here. If you are new to James and not sure what she is about, then I can assist with a couple of choice interviews. The first comes from a very recent piece from The Guardian. They highlighted Loraine James on the release of her much-anticipated and terrific third album:

“Raised in a tower block in Enfield, north London, James has been inspired by electronic music since her mid-teens, allured by IDM greats like Squarepusher and Telefon Tel Aviv: “I was always intrigued by melodic IDM, and wanted to replicate it,” she says, sitting among the craft-beer-sippers in a bar in Hackney Wick, east London. But James has gone far further than mere replication.

“I’m very much a living-room producer,” she says. “I had a keyboard my mum bought when I was younger. From my flat, I could see the London skyline, so I’d jam on the keyboard for hours, overlooking the sky.” James’s tracks have a paradoxical crafted deconstruction: they might initially feel disjointed until you realise that every hit and beat is intentional. She mimics the controlled chaos of free jazz, adopting the dissonance and odd time signatures through beats and glitching synths. “My music is a bit rough,” she says. “A lot of it sounds a bit scrappy, but I don’t re-record it, because I like how it sounds.”

Her 2019 album For You and I garnered widespread critical acclaim, topping end-of-year lists in the Quietus and DJ Mag. James assumed that her Hackney Wick gig, around, around the corner from where she’s sitting today, was destined to be the start of her breakout year. “People only caught on to me when the end-of-year lists came out, so I wasn’t known properly until last year” – and then the pandemic hit. “It’s like I came up and then suddenly disappeared. It’s kind of shit.”

With touring cancelled, James was forced to contemplate the state of her life, hence Reflection. “Sitting there with your thoughts for a year

James is in a predicament in which a lot of Black alternative musicians find themselves: facing routine exclusion from predominantly white electronic music spaces, while feeling as if she will never be Black enough for Black ones. This transitional position has been tough for her to navigate. “I’m still learning to fully appreciate my Blackness because I’ve always felt like I was different,” she says. “I’ve been called an Oreo” – white on the inside, black on the outside – “and other things.” Despite being noticed by prestigious publications, James wishes she could be recognised by the Black community: “Even the Mobo awards don’t have a rock or electronic genre at all”.

If you do get the opportunity to see James perform live, then it guarantees to be a rewarding experience. She is someone who is making music that is very much her own. It is revealing, powerful and hugely impactful! I feel she is someone who will continue to put out music and grow even stronger. As someone who seems to be near the top of her game, to realise she might grow even stronger is exciting indeed!

There are some good interviews out there that James participated in - so I would advise people to do some additional reading and research. In this interview with Loud and Quiet from late last year, we get a nice insight into the mind and music of a remarkable young artist:

“Despite the wealth of stuff she’s put out – largely pay-what-you-want, no less – she’s still self-effacing: “I should probably concentrate on the proper releases.” We’re ostensibly here today to talk about one of those “proper releases”. Directly after the release of For You And I, James uploaded unfinished songs onto a private Soundcloud account with the idea of reaching out to potential collaborators via Twitter, who would later sift through the available tracks for anything that captured their interest. The resulting EP, Nothing, sounds like a greatest hits sampler, containing sonic elements and preoccupations of James’ past work condensed into a single disc. This isn’t to say she was convinced of each track’s potential at first. “I wasn’t feeling the instrumental to ‘Don’t You See It’ at all,” she says. “I wasn’t really into it at the time and wouldn’t have recommended it to anyone.” Luckily, Jonnine Standish of dynastic Australian group HTRK took the gauntlet anyway. “Jonnine sent me her vocals and we reworked the song a bit. Everything started falling into place.” Curiously, with its gut-punching piano, choral pads and sputtering beat, paired with Standish’s R&B-inflected vocal and lyrical melancholia (“Summer is a traitor / ’cos Summer’s moving on”), James hasn’t sounded this tenderly accessible since ‘Sensual’. “I’ve definitely heard a few people call [‘Don’t You See It’] kind-of-pop. I get where they’re coming from, it’s definitely one of the more straightforward songs I’ve done.”

James’ mother is also to be credited for her eclectic listening, if not her cross-genre approach to her own music, having played everything from Calypso to Metallica in the home. As such, you can’t click on any of James’ YouTube videos without seeing a top comment from an ‘S James’: “Loving this from my daughter,” they tend to read, followed by two flame emojis. “She doesn’t listen to electronic music or anything,” laughs L James, “but I’m grateful that she checks out my stuff. I’d sometimes get embarrassed if she’d come down to gigs but it’s fine, and obviously my last few gigs have been clubbier ones that run until one or two o’clock so she’d be in bed anyway”.

There is a 2019 interview from Pitchfork that interested me. The response to the first question really struck me. I hope that things have improved since 2019 - though one feels that there is still a way to go:

“What did you make of the queer scene in London? There’s not a lot of spaces for women.

There isn’t. There’s, like, women’s nights—wow, a night!—but it’s shit. Heaven’s mainstream as hell, so there’s a lot of straight people in there anyway. My guy friends always find someone, and it’s like, “That’s great…” [laughs] When I was single, I would see these women standing in the corner looking very intimidating and be like, “What did I do?!” They literally have their arms folded, watching everything, not having a good time. Or there will be the straight girls.

You said your first album, Details, was more of a technical exercise. Was For You and I your first attempt at making really personal music?

Yeah. Though I didn’t know what direction it was going to go in, and it wasn’t intentional. At the start, the album was called Disjointed. I changed it literally when I sent the masters to Hyperdub because I listened to it whole, and the name didn’t make sense any more.

I didn’t initially have a personal feeling towards a track like “So Scared,” but then I added in vocals that I recorded a few years ago [“You’re over there/You’re fucking scared”]. That’s probably the most vulnerable track on there. It’s basically about public displays of affection—obviously being queer, dealing with verbal abuse or physical abuse, and always being afraid of that. A lot of the time, when I walk around with my partner, I wouldn’t even touch her. I’m a quiet, shy person as it is, I don’t like attention. So that just feels pretty shitty. Sometimes I look at straight couples, and I get a bit like—it’s not fair. Something so easy, I have to think twice about. Even to listen to that song now, I feel like I’m in that situation”.

It is no surprise that Reflection has resonated with critics. It is a remarkable album that one cannot help be moved and entranced by. If you have not got a copy, then it is definitely worth owning one. This is what Rough Trade say about Reflection:

“Made during summer 2020, Loraine James’ second Hyperdub album, Reflection, is a turbulent expression of inner-space, laid out in unflinching honesty, offering gentle empathy and bitter-sweet hope. Reflection further develops a unique pop sensibility realised on last year’s Nothing EP, while tones of Drill and R&B seep through into this collection too. In contrast to the brash splashes of 2019’s For You And I LP and the grimey anger of Nothing, Reflection is pared-down and confident, taking the listener through how last year felt as a young black queer woman in a world that has suddenly stopped moving, the arc of the album peppered with Loraine's diaristic confessions. Starting positively with the gentle pop-trap of ‘Built To Last’ ft Xzavier Stone, into the bumpy instrumental of ‘Let's Go’, the album switches tone with ‘Simple Stuff’, followed by regular collaborator Le3 bLACK amplifying Loraine's vulnerability on the downcast drill of ‘Black Ting’, then ‘Insecure Behaviour And Fuckery’ is a techno glide which pairs Nova's confrontational plea for respect, delivered in monotone autotune, against deep Drexciyan chords. With Baths on vocals, the weightlessness of ‘On The Lake Outside’ soothes numb feelings, and Eden Samara explores the shadow world of anxious dreams on the airy R&B of ‘Running Like That’. Closing track ‘We're Building Something New’ with Manchester rapper Iceboy Violet brings the album together, confidently suggesting a new world is in reach. Reflection is a brave step forward for a unique and creative 21st century musician”.

I am going to wrap up in a second. Beforehand, CRACK were very positive when they sat down to review one of this year’s very best albums – from an artist who is catching the eyes and ears of a whole new wave of fans and admirers:

“With its fractured beats and shy confessionalism, London producer Loraine James won hearts with her acclaimed Hyperdub debut For You and I in 2019. Since then, James has zeroed in on her craft, self-releasing a string of multi-track collections and even put out another EP, titled Nothing, for the revered London label. The arrival of her third album, Reflection, feels like a culmination of all these projects; it’s an open-hearted work by an artist that has undoubtedly levelled up.

Featuring her vocals far more prominently than ever before, James flits between doubtful introspection and open vulnerability. On Simple Stuff, she lays it bare and declares, “I like the simple stuff/ We like the simple things/ What does that bring?” over spliced beats. Building on the album’s tender energy, James enlists the layered harmonies of emo-pop electronic producer Baths for On the Lake Outside.

But Reflection’s emotional catharsis goes beyond the personal. Written during a period of lockdown-induced focus, the album carries within it the broader collective anxieties that came to define 2020. This is most noticeable on album closer We’re Building Something New, which sees Manchester rapper Iceboy Violet anatomise the grief felt throughout the Black community through stark imagery (“breaking bread and cable ties”). Dedicated to “all the victims of police violence”, the track’s ascetic rhythms make room for flourishes of warm piano, like resilience giving rise to something approaching hope. It’s a fitting end to an album that shores up James’ position as one of the UK’s most compelling producers”.

Actually, it is worth highlighting one more review. I feel that Reflection is such an interesting album, hearing a couple of different angles is important. This is what The Quietus remarked in their review:

“The gorgeous ‘On The Lake Outside’ (a collaboration with Baths) shimmers into a calm lullaby-like ode to the outdoor world, while on ‘Change’, James asks herself: “What are you gonna do about it? Huh?” as she snaps to her feet by focussing on rebuilding a future better than the past. The question drives James and lifts her from self-doubt to assurance and the frenzied sparseness of earlier tracks is replaced by soaring affirmations.

It’s perhaps seen most strikingly on the album’s standout, ‘We’re Building Something New’, with Manchester rapper Iceboy Violet. “One million views of Black bodies bruised and you’re acting so confused? / The seeds they sowed bare strange fruit / They tryna bleed us for that juice,” Violet raps as they circle back to where James started on ‘Simple Stuff’ and ‘Black Tings’. But here, Violet and James offer a vision of hope for the future via airy R&B and soaring club synths: “The seeds we sow bare beautiful fruit / We’re building something new....sharing building supplies til we touch the sky.”

Reflection is a striking step forward for James, who has reaffirmed herself as one of the UK’s most talented young IDM artists. Lockdown led James to interrogate every aspect of her identity and the vulnerability she felt in doing so is a feeling many will be able to relate to here; so too is the bitter-sweet hope she finds at the end. This is both a call to change and a call to reflect; without the latter there can’t be the former, James says, on this brave, ambitious and challenging new album”.

I shall leave it there. Go and follow Loraine James and check out her new album. Let’s hope that she is able to gig as much as possible. As a breakthrough artist, last year should have been a really big and exciting one for her. I can understand how anxiety-making the stress of the pandemic would have been. When things open up, she will be able to make up for lost time and strike. That will be…