North London native Loraine James is an electronic producer with a rich and multi-referential sound palette that blends electronica and IDM with whispers of jazz and ambient music with nods to UK drill and grime. Her debut LP ‘For You and I’ came out earlier this year to widespread acclaim, with The Quietus ranking it as their best album of the year in their recent top 100 list, as well as James being featured in Pitchfork’s ‘Rising’ section. Naturally we’re very excited to welcome her to perform at Rewire 2020. The Quietus’ Elizabeth Aubrey caught up with her for an in-depth interview on her origins, musical journey, and experience as a queer woman in London. Find a link to these articles, and stream her album ‘For You and I’ in full, below.
The acclaim and attention that James has recently received is testament to the profound effect of her album ‘For You and I’ on listeners. Pitchfork featured her in their ‘Rising’ section last month, as Aimee Cliff caught up with her.
‘For You and I’ was released on the ever-consistent Hyperdub in September, presenting an esoteric range of sounds and influences, whilst remaining a deeply intimate and personal offering, expressing happiness, anxiety, joy, sensuality and fear through an experimental sense of rhythm and melody. The Quietus’ Noel Gardner described the record as “predominantly, neither high-minded nor solemn: an honest-to-goodness joyous blast of unreasonably pure electronically generated melodies and spindizzy beats pulled from a great many strains of club music.”
In her interview with Elizabeth Aubrey, James speaks of her formative experiences in a towerblock in Enfield. The multiculturalism of this area subtly seeps through to her approach to music production, and she cites it as a major influence: “One of the things I love about London and that place is how multicultural it is and all the different sounds of that life I heard on a daily basis influenced me in some way. I like mixes of people in places that are not just one-sided. It was never one-sided there.”
Stream ‘For You and I’ here:
Also, watch the video for ‘London Ting // Dark As F**K’, directed by Pedro Takahashi:
→ https://www.youtube.com/embed/R-hqMQug3aQ?feature=oembed