Whatever the Weather - Whatever the Weather II Review
Ambient, atmospheric and often deeply personal, Whatever the Weather II finds Loraine James exploring mood through temperature with a more cohesive touch.
Loraine James is far from the first musician to take inspiration from the weather - just try searching ‘Whatever the Weather’ on your streaming platform of choice to see how many results are returned. But she goes further than most by assigning a precise temperature to each track, just as she did on her first release under the Whatever the Weather alias. Usually releasing a blend of glitch, IDM and various urban styles on the esteemed Hyperdub label under her own name, Whatever the Weather is an outlet for James’ more ambient leaning work. The first edition, released in 2022, reportedly contained tracks dating back some years that hadn’t found a home on other albums, whereas the pieces on this latest instalment were made specifically with Whatever the Weather in mind.
And it shows. Volume II is more consistent and cohesive than Volume I, which felt like more of a collection of experiments and offcuts - all distinctively Loraine James - but not coalescing into such a unified listening experience. Once again, the title of every track is simply a measure in degrees Celsius, but rather than taking that literally (whatever that could mean) James suggests these are the relative temperatures she associates with each track. For example 15°C might feel chilly to you, but unseasonably mild to me. And there’s really no better illustration of the relativity of all human experience than the weather and temperature. How often has a bright sunny day filled you with a deep sense of despair?
The album opens with 1°C and James’ voice coming through crackly and distorted, “it’s proper chilly innit” before giving way to expansive pads, that might evoke a depthless sky of overcast clouds. This sense of space, of a big sky overheard, is usually absent on James’ self-titled work, which tends to be claustrophobic and inward looking. Picking up the pace slightly, 3°C rides on muffled crunchy beats and more endless pads flecked with spatters of crackle and glitch like rain on a window.
It’s a sound strongly reminiscent of the early 00s ‘clicks and cuts’ sound, particularly associated with the Mille Plateaux label and is the strongest sonic influence on Whatever the Weather. Detractors would probably complain it’s a style lacking emotion, drawing as it does on computerised glitches and pops and elliptical melodies seemingly generated by code rather than a human player. Loraine James’ music tends to be deeply biographical; her first album For You and I was a tribute to the estate in Enfield where she grew-up and 2021’s Reflections was a meditation on self-doubt and anxiety. So taking such an ‘inhuman’ style as her jumping off point allows freer reign for James’ more experimental tendencies, although unfortunately this approach doesn’t quite sustain enough progression for the entirety of the album and Whatever the Weather II loses its way somewhat around three quarters of the way through.
After the expansive palette cleanser of 3°C, James notches the mercury up with 18°C, a warm and enveloping cloud of crackly ambience. Like some of the best ambient, it allows space for a mood and doesn’t define so much as colour whatever internal climate the listener might be experiencing. Again, it’s quintessential clicks and cuts, in particular the work of Markus Popp as Oval, who created meandering, circuitous melodies by scribbling on pre-recorded CDs with marker pens.
The strongest section of the album falls in the middle, with a trio of tracks that each take a simple idea and execute it flawlessly. From the new-agey chimes of 5°C which shimmer with the kind of synthetic haze Oneohtrix Point Never is so fond of employing; through the unashamedly lovely synth drones of 8°C, which shows how relative the temperature is, as to me this feels like lying back in a field letting the summer sun wash over you. Then to the more textured 26°C, whose alternately attacking and delaying pads make me want to reach for another layer.
After that, things tail off a bit. 11°C (Intermittent Rain) is 2 minutes of intermittent crackles and glitches serving as an interlude before the final three tracks, which are all decent enough but lack sufficient momentum when strung together to present a compelling climax. 9°C makes too much use of a field recording of what sounds like a school playground with the noise of kids shouting unintelligibly; maybe it’s intended to evoke the outdoor environment but it just takes me out of the music and sullies the vibe.
Whatever the Weather is not as accessible or approachable as James’ releases under her own name, the strength of which have seen her become something of a low-key IDM popstar. As with any artist who mines their self-identity for inspiration, there’s a risk of allowing oneself to become boxed-in. James seems too restlessly creative to let that to happen, and Whatever the Weather allows her to explore more oblique perspectives. At times this can falter and come off as noodley, but when it succeeds the results are direct, absorbing, refreshing - a breath of fresh air, whatever the weather.