- Loraine James crafts an album of experiments as fickle and strikingly beautiful as a day when the sun is just peeking out from behind the clouds.
- Just two albums and a few EPs in, Loraine James' catalog is already a scintillating web of abstract percussion, video game bleeps and glitchy production. Her work teeters on the edge of dance music and more introspective, home listening fare, as traces of grime and jungle appear subdued, or molded into prickly shapes. Even with that in mind, this LP from her new meteorologically-themed project Whatever The Weather is surprisingly sparse—she mostly abandons the bassweight in favor of iridescent ambient and IDM touches. The new name reflects a new kind of artistic freedom. Speaking to Pitchfork earlier this year, she explained that project's future might look like productions spanning anything from improv to math rock. "I don't want to limit what I make," she said.
While working on her music over the years, James would file away tracks in the studio that didn't quite fit in with the music she put out under her own name. Close to the finish line of her 2021 album, Reflections, there were some outstanding ideas left on the cutting room floor that got the gears turning inside her head. Maybe there was a home for this material, just as part of an entirely separate project. These outliers make up Whatever The Weather's self-titled debut, an immersive assemblage of Telefon Aviv-inspired ambient tracks written in 2017 as well as music made by processing improv recordings through the sound design software Slate + Ash.
Not every artist can pivot to beatless material and pass with flying colors. But what came out of James' many years of putting aside misfit tracks is a brilliantly serene album, where each song is assigned a different temperature, ranging from the biting winter lows to the blistering mid-summer heat. The record mainly homes in on resplendent, flowering arpeggios and frozen-over minor chords, but when James does lend her softly sung vocals to the project, her plaintive whine arrives airy and naked. (She's cited bands like Deftones and American Football as unlikely influences.)
James's vocals might lack the impassioned longing of those bands, but her discography has always taken inspiration from emo's penetrating angst. It's especially palpable on Whatever The Weather, where even the idyllic warmer temperatures—weather designed for frolicking, sweaty, bustling streets and rapturous outdoor gatherings—exude a gentle sadness.
"You see the light again," James croons on "30°C (Intermittent Sunshine)," where she makes her voice as small as possible, as if she were hovering closely above the mic, as muted shades of blue and white chords flurry upwards like scattered tree pollen riding the wind. There's also a quiet dynamism to "28°C," where fluttering beats take turns climaxing and fading into the background, emulating golden rays occasionally piercing through cotton wads of clouds. Inching into heat-wave territory, time halts in "36°C," inviting listeners to relish in the sacred warmth of its layered synths.
There are still vestiges of the abstract, IDM-club hybrids fans have come to associate with Loraine James. Amidst the frozen fields of "0°C," erratic drums and sputters of radio static slink around pointillist, reverb-coated synths. On "17°C," gentle percussion ticks on like a broken clock, moments of stillness obstructed by the occasional eruption of jungle breaks. This is where the album hits its energetic zenith, though calming introspection lurks behind every corner. It sounds like the strained mental processes of someone engulfed in deep thought in the middle of a buzzing, crowded room.
As much as ambient music can be cast off as music meant to fade into the background of our daily lives, there are many deeply immersive records that challenge this notion, activating our minds and encouraging us to listen with more than one of our senses. In the unhurried calm of Whatever The Weather, it's easy to envision the slow-moving shifts of the season. The bleeps of "10°C" might become cherry blossoms in pre-bloom, the "2°C "drizzle may begin to drip down in twittering piano notes. However one chooses to sit with the sounds in the album, personally, as an American, Celsius has never sounded so dreamy.
Tracklist01. 25°C
02. 0°C
03. 17°C
04. 14°C
05. 2°C (Intermittent Rain)
06. 10°C
07. 6°C
08. 4°C
09. 30°C
10. 36°C
11. 28°C (Intermittent Sunshine)