Born in Slough in 1982, James moved to Buckingham at the age of 6, before finally settling in London when he was 11. In his own words, he lead "a pretty normal life," listening to a vast range of music. "Everything from… [pauses] everyone! Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, T Rex, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin… NWA, Bob Marley… Tenor Saw – he was ruff! – old sound system tapes… everything, man! Portishead Live in New York never leaves my stereo!" By the age of 12, James was already making his first forays into the world of music production. "My cousin Leroy used to live down by Heathrow Airport, and I used to travel down there every other Saturday and stay there overnight making little shitty tunes on his crappy computer! Well at the time it was good; it was Fast Tracker 2, and you could make music on this little blue and black program! So big up Leroy!"
Before being introduced to the dnb scene by some people he knew at school, James used to tamper with breakbeats – as he puts it, "I was some young 12, 13, 14 year old Prodigy wannabe, and a hip hop wannabe. Then I started doing dnb."
Bursting onto the scene in 2001 with an explosive, unofficial remix of Doc Scott’s classic Here Come The Drums, which tore up many a dancefloor, including the legendary Metalheadz Sunday Sessionz. The remix picked up by Reinforced for release on it’s legendary Enforcers series of picture disks; the relationship with this label continued with singles as Solar Motion (in collaboration with Dsyfa), an EP with Threshold of Special Branch, and two solo EPs. It was via Special Branch that James made contact with the Inperspective family. Forrester introduced James to Equinox, knowing the two would hit it off. The rest is, as they say, history. Inperspective signed Comatose and Trance, and James went on to revisit Equinox’s Acid Rain, a piece of Amen science that James rates as one of his favourite pieces of dnb, alongside such classics as Rufige Crew’s Kemistry – "Probably the best dnb tune in the world EVER!"
His ability to turn his hand to any style he fancies is perhaps James’ strongest point. From the dubby stylings of So Vain and Out of Reach, through the liquid leanings of his collaborations with Metalheadz resident DJ Flight as Alias, and onto the pure breakbeat science he unleashes on Inperspective, James excels at whatever he turns his hand to. "I make all different kinds of stuff, there’s no one style! My style is unorthodox!" As with the other Inperspective artists, though, James’ personal favourites are signed to the I. "I’m so happy with my Acid Rain VIP Final Chapter remix. That and Drowning." In addition to his collaborations with DJ Flight, James plans to work with Equinox in the near future, and would love to work with other artists such as Tangerine Dream and James Lavelle.
