Featuring Jess Edlin and fellow Matua Trap member Steven Butler, ‘Knowledge Spice’ is the latest track to drop from Belfast-based producer James Bruce AKA Oaks. Assuredly building on early material including his debut album Safe Haven (revisit here), it summons subtly cascading Brainfeeder grooves, enveloping, Of Montrealian vocal harmonies and a sonic terrain inhabited by everyone from The Books and Ametsub to Madlib and Boards of Canada. Stream it and Rachael Boyd’s remix below.
When he’s not drumming for the likes of Matua Trap and Kasper Rosa, Belfast-based drummer and producer James ‘Tree’ Bruce is concocting some sublime electronic sounds as Oaks. Having just released his consistently impressive, hugely promising debut release, L’etoile Mysterieuse, Brian Coney chats to Bruce about the project. You’re a drummer in a couple of different bands – what inspired you to branch out (no pun intended) into Oaks? I’ve been making music on my own for years but it was always just for the pleasure of doing it, seeing what I could come up with. It was actually a…
One for fans of abstracted, hip-hop inflected ambient noise, Belfast-based musician James Bruce AKA Oaks has released his eight-track debut album, Safe Haven. Calling to mind everyone from Mouse and Mars, Labradford and The Books to Tortoise, Exploding Orchestra and Boards of Canada, the album – recorded in different locations but predominantly Bruce’s home – melds found sounds and samples with scattered beats, brass and strings to form an impressive, nicely hypnotic mid-point between drifting melancholia and bold experimentalism. The artwork for the released – arranged by Bruce, also drummer with Belfast prog band Kasper Rosa – features a photo taken by Tom McGeehan. Stream Safe Haven via Bandcamp…