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Loraine James

An electronic producer from Enfield, North London, whose Hyperdub albums For You and I (2019), Reflection (2021) and Gentle Confrontation (2023) set glitched drums and IDM against R&B, drill and emo.

Enfield and the laptop

Loraine James was born on December 18, 1995 and grew up on the Alma Estate in Enfield, North London. Her mother's wide taste shaped what she heard, from calypso and funk to Paramore and Death Cab for Cutie, and as a teenager she loved the IDM of Squarepusher, DNTEL, Lusine and Telefon Tel Aviv. She learned piano, taught herself production with a MIDI keyboard and a laptop, and studied commercial music at the University of Westminster. She began releasing experimental tracks on Bandcamp in 2015, and Detail followed in 2017 on Fu Inle, after which she signed to Hyperdub. During the pandemic she left a teaching assistant job to make music full time.

For You and I came out on Hyperdub on September 20, 2019: eleven tracks and 47:35, with a cover photograph of tower blocks in Ponders End, Enfield, and a working title of Disjointed. Metacritic scored it 87, and DJ Mag and The Quietus both named it the best album of the year; Noel Gardner in The Quietus called it a joyous blast of unreasonably pure electronically generated melodies and spindizzy beats. She also won an Oram Award.

Reflection, Whatever the Weather and the later records

Reflection (Hyperdub, June 4, 2021, 45:40) scored 86 on Metacritic, with 7.9 from Pitchfork, 10 out of 10 from PopMatters and five stars from Mojo. Under the name Whatever the Weather she released an ambient album on Ghostly in 2022, built from improvised Ableton sessions during the 2020 lockdown, with track titles that are temperatures, and a second in 2025. Building Something Beautiful for Me (Phantom Limb, October 7, 2022) is a homage to Julius Eastman. In 2020 she also made the EPs Hmm and Nothing, and in May 2022 53 with TSVI.

Gentle Confrontation (Hyperdub, September 22, 2023) was her first album to use cleared samples, from Lusine, DNTEL and Telefon Tel Aviv. Detached From the Rest of You came out on Hyperdub on May 8, 2026. She has played Cafe OTO in London, the Knockdown Center in Queens on her New York debut on May 1, 2022, and Milton Court in London in September 2025, and made a guest mix for KEXP's Midnight in a Perfect World on November 16, 2020. Setlist.fm lists 55 shows.

Albums

Songs

  • Glitch the System Gentle Confrontation · 2023

    Track six of Gentle Confrontation, a stuttering arpeggio and fast drums, titled as a sequel to "Glitch Bitch" from 2019.

Sources

  1. Loraine James, Wikipedia
  2. For You and I, Wikipedia
  3. Reflection (Loraine James album), Wikipedia
  4. Loraine James, For You and I, The Quietus (2019-09-19)