Is that something you can appreciate or get influenced by now that you’re removed from it?

There's been times I was bored and I've listened back to them and yeah, they're still very bad. But I think I'm still very much inspired by that kind of music and it definitely influences particularly the way I play the keys. I spent a lot of my teenage years jamming on the keyboard and trying to mimic guitars or even just the drum patterns of those kinds of genres. I'm trying to actually kind of go back into that. I feel like I've got a bit rigid in terms of the DAW, so I’m trying to go back to ten years ago and just play a bit more loosely.

How has your studio setup changed through the years? And how important is that in shaping actually what you're making?

Oh, yeah, it's changed quite a bit. I still make a lot of things on the computer, but I've definitely gone outside of that. I've gotten into pedals, I kind of got into that through a musician called Fauzia. I had a session a few years ago where I saw her running a Chase Bliss Blooper thing through her phone or something. I was like, what is this? And then I bought one right away, now I have about eight or ten pedals. It’s nice to not look at the computer and, yeah, just get outside of that because it can be kind of boring, you end up doing the same thing that you know how to do. So that's definitely changed. I experiment more with that, because to be honest, I don’t know how to use a lot of these things properly, but I also kind of don't want to, I think it leaves the fun for me as well.

What was your setup looking like around the time Detail came out? I'm curious about your headspace at that time, an emergent moment for you.

Yeah, I made that album in 2016, 2017, just mainly for my final end-of-year uni project. I had to have a project or something, so I was like, Okay, I'll do an album. Definitely the album was more about—it's very technical. I listened to a lot of Japanese IDM artists, so I was very much focusing on the finer details in my music. It's way less emotional than it is now. But I'm still pretty pleased with the album. Yeah, I just made it all on Ableton, usually on the sofa in the living room while my mom was watching TV. Or probably made a bit at uni as well, I think. Yeah, just me and the laptop, to be honest with you.

Is that something you're always trying to negotiate when making music—that balance between precision and emotion?

It depends, because the emotion can come later, when the pieces kind of fit and I can understand what it's about. But also, I try and think about the details later because I think I can just nitpick all day and it becomes less fun. Even having the Whatever The Weather thing, I'll record something once or twice and I won't really edit. I try not to edit things too much, especially in the more melodic playing. The drums, yeah, I'll tend to go into. But the melodic stuff I try to do in one take, two takes, maybe mess with it later, but I like to keep that balance—of fine tuning and leaving it a bit more rough.

I don't like my music particularly perfect. I don't really like perfect, clean music. But I think that also goes back to a lot of the Midwest emo bands and stuff. A lot of them I discovered from Bandcamp, and they were recorded in their garage. Sometimes when they got a bit bigger, they would re-record it, and I'd hate that it sounded much cleaner. I just prefer when it’s scrappy and the vocals are a bit all over the place. So I like to, in my own way, keep that kind of thing as well.

You've collaborated pretty extensively. I'm curious how that has shaped how you think about making music yourself.

Yeah, I think collaboration definitely expanded on my ideas. I used to hate the idea of collaboration, I don't really know why, I was not a fan of it, but now I think it's great. For each project, I have a list in my head of who I'd love to work with. But when I start making it, that’s when I kind of know who I'd like to reach out to. I like to think of it later, I don't want to force something. So a lot of the time, I like to maybe chuck in an acapella and be like, Okay, this needs singing, or actually maybe it needs less of a vocal performance like that. So downloading acapellas of pop stars and chucking that into my work helps me structure things better.

Web of Influences - Loraine James

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Web of Influences - Loraine James