Loraine James Takes Electronic Musics Temperature With New Alias Whatever the Weather – Pitchfork

A meteorologist given to metaphor might listen to Loraine James short instrumental sketch 2C (Intermittent Rain) and say that the air over the city was streaked with leaden synthesizers, inclement reverb, and the steady pitter-pat of dissolving cymbal taps. An empath might listen to the track and realize that no matter how dreary the day, James clearly found something beautiful in the grayscale swirl. When James herself Zooms in from her apartment in Leytonstone, London, the temperature outside nearly matches that of her songnot that shes letting the chill affect her. I havent really been out too much, to be honest, she admits, swaddled in a thick black hoodie and a cream-colored baseball cap. Its very at-home vibes.

James new project is called Whatever the Weather, and its self-titled debut is characterized by an unusual gambit: Every song describes a different temperature. The beatless 25C paints a picture of radiant, sun-warmed bliss; the jagged rhythms of 0C are as brittle as the thin ice over a sidewalk puddle. (For those unaccustomed to the Celsius scale, the album might also double as a handy cheat sheet.)

A collection of ambient, IDM, and skittering drillnbass, Whatever the Weather marks a sharp break from James 2021 album Reflection, a Cubist self-portrait painted in contrasting styles of experimental club music. Where that record frequently kicked against the enforced doldrums of the pandemics first anxious year, the new record, which she worked on in parallel in 2020, is mellower and more bucolic. And where Reflection foregrounded an array of rising vocalists and rappers, Whatever the Weather is mostly instrumentalexcept for a few songs featuring James own vocals, which were influenced by Deftones Chino Moreno and Mike Kinsella of Midwestern emo heroes American Football, of all people.

The projects open-ended moniker is meant in part to reflect the fact that it may change shape in the future. Ive always been into improv and math rock, she says, thinking ahead. I dont want to limit what I make.

The new alias is just the latest unexpected twist in James remarkably dynamic career. Over the past seven years, the 26-year-old has progressed from the tentative experiments of her earliest, self-released EPs to become one of the brightest lights of Londons Hyperdub label, alongside artists like Burial and Jessy Lanza. Since her 2019 breakout LP For You and I, she has developed a recognizable style defined largely by its shapeshifting qualitiesknotty electronic rhythms, contorted synths, tumultuous bursts punctuated by passages of dulcet calm. Over the past two years, fans have watched her evolve in real time on Bandcamp, where she has kept up a steady stream of loosies, outtakes, archival material, and random EPs.

James release strategy sometimes appears as unpredictable as her music: Late last fall, as Reflection began popping up in year-end list after year-end list, she offered the seven-track Wrong Name EP. Like Whatever the Weather, its songs comprise a loosely themed series: Each titleLoraine JONes, LAraine James, Loraine JANes, etc.was drawn from a misspelling of her name in the press or on a club lineup. More unusual still was the digital EPs shelflife: She posted it for sale on Bandcamp for just one week before taking it down forever. Still, in James mercurial world, even forever is a relative term. When fans started emailing her to say they had missed out on the record, she sent a bunch of them WeTransfer files of it. Im not going to say no if you forgot to buy it, she says, laughing.

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Pitchfork: Youve done a lot of Bandcamp-only EPs over the past couple of years. What made you decide that you wanted Whatever the Weather to be a standalone project with its own identity?

Loraine James: I was finishing up Reflection and there were a couple of ideas in the album folder where I thought, This could be the start of something else. Sometimes Ill make stuff that I think is good, but it doesnt necessarily sound like a Loraine James thing, so Ill put it aside. Some tracks on this album are five years old. I always wanted to put them in something, but they never made sense.

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Loraine James Takes Electronic Musics Temperature With New Alias Whatever the Weather - Pitchfork