loraine james – The Predatory Wasp

Loraine James’s new album Building Something Beautiful For Me lands today and fucking hell it is amazing. I never really clicked with last year’s Reflection, but loved her ambient album as Whatever The Weather from earlier this year. Building… seems to sit somewhere between these ambient and club spaces and comes across almost like a work in progress, with tracks stopping abruptly or changing tone midway through. There are so many highlights picking a single track was very tough, but I went for Black Excellent (Stay On It) due to the simplicity of its construction – pretty much just a single, undulating synthline throughout – resolved perfectly by the bleak beauty of its final third.

https://clark.bandcamp.com/album/05-10

Unlike pretty much every other person in the world, I didn’t really enjoy Loraine James’s 2021 album Reflections very much. It’s obviously really good, I just found it a bit jarring and after a few time thinking “everyone loves this, so you should too!” kinda just stopped trying. It felt too much like hard work, which absolutely does not apply to her new album recorded as Whatever the Weather, which seems tailor-made for me: all the rough corners of Reflection sanded down to a soft sheen, and the machine-driven claustrophobia replaced by hazily shimmering vistas. Opener 25°C is about as calming as music gets, and that’s what I need in my life right now.

https://whateva.bandcamp.com/album/whatever-the-weather