Left Orbit Temple
Left Orbit Temple is James'
own
sonic
outlet. After several
decades spent making other people's music sound just how they want it
to, James developed LOT to explore ideas that don't have a place in his
day-to-day work.
Left Orbit Temple is about
exploring sounds and textures.
The
pieces are dark, often dissonant, and avoid categorization.
The idea is genreless music that draws from James'
early roots in electronic and industrial music, plus his newer
appreciation of folk and tribal music from around the globe.
These influences were used as
starting points from which to wildly diverge.
During recording,
whenever something sounded jazz, it was changed. When it sounded
rock, it was changed. When it sounded country, it was
changed. The goal is something both electronic and organic, but
that avoids both the banality of modern electronic music and the
mawkishness associated with "world music".
James has begun work
on a new Left Orbit Temple
release, and has actually been tinkering with it for several
years.
His other activities have been priorities lately, but he plans for
finish
these new tracks... eventually.
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Left Orbit Temple recordings:
Phase 1: Fifteen songs recorded in James'
first
home studio.
(unreleased).
Phase 2: Seventeen songs recorded in James' second
home studio
(unreleased).
Phase 3: Twenty songs recorded in the first pro
studio that James worked in (unreleased).
The Ice-Nine EP: Four tracks
recorded at Chicago Trax by James,
Danny
McGuiness, Charles Levi, and additional guests.
Prolusion: The full-length CD (with extra CD-ROM
content) released by Tydirium Multimedia.
Prolusion
features James and A. Sam Pleur joined by a dozen musical guests, plus
a
virtual art gallery.
Other recordings: James also
contributed keyboards to a remix of
Copper Theft by
Monster Voodoo Machine, and was a performer
and co-writer on the
Club Dead video game soundtrack.
Live performance: LOT is a studio project, and no live
performances are planned. However, the Phase 3 material was
performed live under the name
Flat Earth
Society (before the name LOT was settled on). The
highlight of these gigs was opening for
Front 242. James
has also performed as a member of industrial supergroup
Pigface
(about fifty shows in the mid-1990s), as a founding member of the
legendary Cleveland postpunk group
Evil Clowns
(1988-1991), and
was briefly a member of
Pangaea.