The project’s debut single, ‘get low’, garnered positive reviews in Australian and UK media, airplay on triple j and Sydney’s FBi, and landed James a record deal with Liberation Records.
The low-key upload of ‘get low’ – a glacial electronic track featuring vocals from fellow Sydneysider Ric Rufio – came after several years of hesitation and delay.
“I scrapped I reckon at least four EPs worth of material and upwards of maybe 50 songs over the last five years,” says James. “I even completely finished and mastered a whole EP in 2016/17. It just didn’t feel right until the first song I wrote for this project, ‘not broken’. I couldn’t stop listening to it and I was like, oh this is it.
“That spawned the rest of it and I kept my tool-kit of sounds really, really minimal, trying to not be too expansive and work within some confines and it just all clicked. And now I have a really clear direction of what I want to be.”
Both ‘get low’ and ‘not broken’ appear on upsidedownhead’s freshly-released EP, complex. James previously performed under the moniker Lanterns, but after a string of moderately well received singles, he abandoned the project five years ago.
“I wasn’t creatively stimulated,” he says. “I liked the stuff I was doing, but it just didn’t have the right feeling. Then once you find that point, the floodgates open.”
James spends his days working as a session musician, music director and sometime producer with the likes of Vera Blue, Thelma Plum, Eves Karydas, Daniel Johns, E^ST and Wafia. Juggling that many projects takes its toll and routinely distances him from his family. The fact he’s committed to another solo project indicates his strong attachment to the songs on complex.
“Essentially this whole thing was to make something for myself and not for any label or any person,” he says. “I was certainly aware of people enjoying something, but this truly and utterly was like making something for myself. It’s always funny, you make something for yourself and then other people seem to like it. And it was probably the first time I really, truly did that.”
The EP’s seven track sequence flows like one unified thematic movement, characterised by a distinct darkness. This is in contrast to James’ lovely and happy demeanour.
“Generally I’m a happy person, but I just love dark brooding music. And I always have. I struggle with pop music still and I struggle with obvious stuff. I’ve always enjoyed more mainstream things like Arcade Fire and Coldplay, but they also have their dark edges and it’s the dark edgy stuff I’ve always liked.
“But I am drawn towards a few particular producers, if it’s Radiohead or Thom Yorke but also Weval and Rival Consoles and James Blake. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I grew up listening to nu metal.”
But the mysterious, moody, and consistently dance-y tracks on complex share far more commonalities with the likes of Radiohead and Massive Attack than Korn or P.O.D. James was also motivated by a number of newer artists.
“Weval. They’re from Amsterdam. They’re a production duo and are hugely inspirational. I love James Blake’s approach to music and minimalism. The other one is Rival Consoles. I was just listening to his EP prior to writing this stuff but I don’t know if it directly influenced. There’s a bunch of other producers – a guy named Christian Löffler who I really dig, Kiasmos and Ólafur Arnalds. I love that stuff.
“All that stuff is quite minimal. That’s been a big takeaway, to try to find the one thing and then build around a little simple set of things. Even though it’s quite complex in construction, I’ve definitely tried to keep it pretty minimal in the approach.”
