5 out of 5

Label: Analogical Force

Produced by: Benjamin James Wood

Oh Mr James’ track on Analogical Force’s Sixty compilation definitely caught my ear. I hadn’t called out many specifics on that set because almost everything was amazing, but the fast-paced hop-skip between Rephlex disciplines of drill and glitch, stepped up with a legitimately compelling (manipulated) vocal track and synths that moved the song towards pop really were especially grabbing, with my hopes of tracking down past material stymied by… there not being very much, and physical copies unavailable. AF came to the rescue a bit later by releasing Oh Mr James’ (Benjamin James Wood) followup EP, which takes the wild premise of that comp song and spreads it out for six tracks, staying in the “familiar” with opener Sometimes’ vocal-muxing and Aphex / Cylob style beats, but proving – within that song and on the rest – that this isn’t going to be cut-and-paste of the same tricks for each track. Like some of the best AF artists, Wood pulls from the greats, taking recognizable sound samples from the already-mentioned Aphex, some retro groove from DMX Krew, and other Rephlex or Rephlex-adjacent bits and bobs, but constantly smooshing and smoothing them together in non-trivial ways to make for, firstly, exciting combos, but also solid ones – not shtick; not mimicry – that Oh Mr James can then reformat into acid workouts or ambient-enhanced journeys, and continuing the ante-up of structuring things such that they feel like full songs, and not just beat workouts.

It’s precise, it’s playful, it’s confident and showy with an openness built into the tone that’s very welcoming, and suggests we can only expect more good things to come.