Loraine James has shared details of a new album which draws on the work of late US composer Julius Eastman.
Marking James’ debut for UK label Phantom Limb, the eight-track Building Something Beautiful For Me reinterprets a number of Eastman’s key works. James was given access to Eastman’s originals and transcribed MIDI stems, as well as his 2015 biography, Gay Guerilla, by Renee Levine-Packer and Mary Jane Leach, last summer ahead of working on the project.
Phantom Limb made the initial connection between James and Eastman’s surviving brother, Gerry. Eastman – whose early ’70s work Femenine was previously released by Frozen Reeds in 2016 and has more recently been the focus of a series of anthology releases by the Wild-Up collective and New Amsterdam label – passed away in 1990. You can listen to the lead track from Building Something Beautiful For Me, ‘Maybe If I (Stay On It)’, which is a reinterpretation of Eastman’s 1973 piece ‘Stay On It’, above.
Ahead of the album’s release, James will team up with the London Contemporary Orchestra on October 2 to perform select tracks from the new album at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Find out more about that show here.
Building Something Beautiful For Me follows on from James’ 2021 album, Reflection, and 2019 LP For You And I, which were both released via Hyperdub. The latter was named tQ’s favourite album of 2019.
Get accustomed with Julius Eastman’s work by revisiting tQ’s 2019 Strange World Of… feature on the composer.
Phantom Limb will release Building Something Beautiful For Me on October 7, 2022.
