Magic Seeds (LP)

Over the past few years, James has steadily built a reputation as a vital new voice in electronic music on both sides of the Atlantic. He's played prestigious London venues like the Barbican and Village Underground in London and toured Europe, as well as being named Pitchfork and KCRW's 'best new music' in the US. And his music has been championed by the likes of tastemakers Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Bradley Zero and actor Cillian Murphy, and from BBC 6Music to NTS.

He isn't afraid of defying convention. James's debut album A Louder Silence in 2018 deftly blended IDM and minimalist avant-garde influences with Nina Simone-inspired vocals. He wanted to capture heady nights at London's long-lost and beloved club Plastic People, where DJs like Floating Points would play jazz in the middle of a set, and followed it with a remix EP, featuring respected leftfielders including Bruce, FaltyDL and Coby Sey.

And yet James refused to stay in one lane. A year later, he released the track 'Wurlitzer', an ominous crescendo of neo-classical piano and sub-bass that suggested Aphex Twin and Nils Frahm at Berghain and won acclaim at film festivals thanks to its visual by Hungarian director Balázs Simon. Then came his second, more challenging electronic full-length in 2020, where James continued to flex his experimental side. A clear rebellion against his first record, it was tellingly-titled Angel in Disguise. The album garnered attention from the dance music world, earning praise from Mixmag, CRACK and DJ Mag, and James was invited to perform it on Boiler Room in full.

Third album Magic Seeds is a rebirth of sorts and his most ambitious project yet. At the beginning of the recording process, James went into the studio in London and played keys with drummer Leo Taylor (The Invisible), violinist Raven Bush (Speakers Corner Quartet) and producer/engineer Oli Bayston (whose recent credits include Kelly Lee Owens). "It was just the four of us in a room for one day, improvising and enjoying the thrill of playing together," he says. "I was thinking of the Talk Talk record Spirit of Eden, the way they wrote it for months in the dark and then heavily edited it afterwards. I wanted that feeling of a real room of musicians, rather than using samples."