LORAINE JAMES
Creating the ‘album of the year’ with freeware and a 50-quid keyboard
Electronic producer Loraine James had just produced what many critics cited as the ‘album of the year’ when a certain pandemic hit… and all with a 50-quid keyboard and freeware. What to do? Produce your way out of a pandemic with another album of the year, that’s what…
Four years ago Loraine James released her debut album , Detail, to widespread critical acclaim, but it was her next album on Hyperdub, For You And I, that earned the London-based producer even more praise, including ‘album of the year’ in both DJ Mag and Quietus. Live gigs followed including headline shows and support slots for Telefon Tel Aviv, Jessy Lanza and Holly Herndon. Such is life, though, and just as you’re breaking through, a certain pandemic comes along and puts a halt to proceedings. But no matter. James has used the enforced lockdown to produce her finest album yet. Reflection is just that, a personal and honest journey produced “in a world that suddenly stopped moving”. It veers from an intriguing “BeachBoys-in-space weightlessness” to tracks with just about any label you care to try and stick on them (trap? grime, electro, jazz? – “I don’t know”, she laughs) with many produced with various guest artists including Xzavier Stone and regular collaborator Le3 bLACK. Perhaps it’s the perfect way to get through enforced solitude: produce, produce, produce. And the best part of all? Reflection was done on a laptop with a whole bunch of free plugins…
1 Tell us how you got into music production in the first place? Loraine James: “I’m a producer from London, and have been making electronic music since I was 16, when I left secondary school and enrolled on a production course at college. I’ve been around music since I was young; my mum plays the steel pan and I started learning to play the keyboard at the age of 6.”
2 When did you start to feel you were getting somewhere”?
LJ: “I started making a living from music in the summer of 2020. I’d been saving money from my previous job and was lucky to be busy with music last year.”
3 What is your overall music and production philosophy?
LJ: “To try and not overthink things and not to
have too much of an expectation as well. Both can just end up with you making things very linear for yourself, and also if you expect something and it doesn’t turn out how you want, it can sometimes be annoying!”
4 Tell us about your ‘computer music’ production history?
LJ: “When I was 16 I started producing with a computer. Before that I was just making stuff on a little keyboard with 300 presets and writing very bad lyrics in a notebook, all from when I was about 12.”
5 Tell us about the rest of the gear in your recording studio
LJ: “When making music, I pretty much just use solely the MacBook keys or a MIDI keyboard. When playing live, I’ve always used a MIDI keyboard, Akai APC40 MK2, and a Novation Launchpad/control.”
6 What are your favourite plugins?
LJ: “I use mainly free plugins so:
Polyverse Music Wider – It’s self explanatory – it just makes the sound wider; I use it really for making kicks wider and vocals mainly.
“Eventide Quadravox – I love layering vocals. This plugin makes it sound really nice and natural compared to some of the other plugins that I’ve tried.
“Output Portal – a very easy-to-use effects VST where the effects can focus on different sections like drums, vocals or smearing sounds all over the place.
“Surge – is a free synth VST – you can do a lot with it and it has great presets.”
“Valhalla Supermassive – all of Valhalla’s plugins are great. This plugin is free, and is one of the best reverbs out there.”
7 How do you tend to start a track?
LJ: “Sometimes it starts with me just improvising on Ableton with a sound I do or don’t like. Then I’ll sample it, like I did on the song Let’s Go. It changes – sometimes it’ll be with percussion part of it – but I do love playing the results on the keyboard.”
8 How do you know when a track’s done?
LJ: “In the past year I’ve definitely begun editing myself, which I hadn’t done before; just thinking: ‘is this part really necessary?’ or ‘does the song need to be that long?’ and so on. Sometimes I can be done with a song in 30 minutes, other times I need to give it a while and think ‘ah no; actually this section of it just does not work’. I don’t really have any advice, but I think it’s just more a thing that you know when something is done or that you’re happy with.”
9 Do you have any production tricks?
LJ: “A lot of the time, Simpler on Ableton is my go-to plugin. I love splicing things up and just finding random bits of goodness in there, and you can change the sensitivity so the length of the section you’re working on increases or decreases.”
10 How did you manage the various collaborations during lockdown?
LJ: “All of them were done online through sending stuff back and forth on WeTransfer. I usually work like that so it was no different for me in a pandemic!”
11 What’s on your gear shopping list?
LJ: “I have been thinking about getting some hardware lately, but really I’m scared to in case I spend loads on it and just never use it and it just collects dust.”
12 What advice have you got for playing out live (now that we can!)?
LJ: “Be in the moment. A lot of gigs I’ve regretted not being ‘in the moment’ and treating it more like, ‘ah I can’t mess up’. Just enjoy it and believe that no one cares or can tell that you’ve messed up.”
13 What have you picked up from being in the industry that you can pass on?
LJ: “Collaborate. And just going to gigs and meeting like-minded people is fun. I wish I’d done that more before the pandemic.”
14 Plug time! Give us a gratuitous plug for whatever you like!
LJ: “The new album Reflection is out now, and there’s a headline London show in October. If you like what you hear, then you should buy it… if you want. Or see me live and decide!”
15 And finally, what else have you got coming up?
LJ: “Just more music stuff!”
Loraine James’s latest album Reflection, is out now on Hyperdub.
“A lot of gigs, I’ve regretted not being ‘in the moment’”