Loraine James – “Maybe If I (Stay On It)”

After releasing an ambient album under the name Whatever The Weather earlier this year, London producer Loraine James has announced an official follow-up to last year’s Reflection. Building Something Beautiful For Me “reinterprets, reimagines, and responds” to the late minimalist composer Julius Eastman, who died in 1990 of cardiac arrest. James has also shared a lead single, “Maybe If I (Stay On It),” which riffs on Eastman’s “Stay On It.”

Working with Eastman’s brother Gerry Eastman, James and Phantom Limb began the tribute project in summer 2021 with James working off of a zip drive containing Eastman originals, Renee Levine-Packer and Mary Jane Leach’s 2015 biography Gay Guerilla, and transcribed MIDI stems. Likewise, ahead of release, on Oct. 2 James will play selected tracks from the album with the London Contemporary Orchestra at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s Southbank Centre. Ticket info is available here.

Listen to “Maybe If I (Stay On It)” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Maybe If I (Stay On It)”
02 “The Perception Of Me (Crazy N*****)”
03 “Choose To Be Gay (Femenine)”
04 “Building Something Beautiful For Me”
05 “Enfield, Always”
06 “My Take”
07 “Black Excellence (Stay On It)”
08 “What Now (Prelude To The Holy Presence Of Joan D’Arc)”

Building Something Beautiful For Me is out 10/7 via Phantom Limb.