James Murray - Weeds (2024)

Delighted to say that giving us the next instalment in the quiet details series is the prolific and much-loved visionary of minimal and ambient music, James Murray.

James is responsible for a back catalogue of the highest quality - establishing himself as an artist that falls squarely into the ‘essential listening’ category. With releases on top labels such as Home Normal, Ultimae, Eilean Rec, Fluid Audio, Morr Music (as Slow Reels) and more, and many on his own Slowcraft, his immaculate productions have earned him a place at the top table of modern ambient music.

Having already graced quiet details as part of qd15 Slow Reels (with Ian Hawgood), here we find James diving deep into experimental processes, guided by his peerless intuition and refined musical sensibilities.

The album is as conceptually fascinating as it is aurally beautiful, as James says:

Each track is a loose study of various structural, cultural or biochemical aspects of each plant's nature and reputation. As a collection Weeds celebrates the understated, overlooked, so-called inconvenient or arbitrarily maligned.

He continues:

This is a kind of sister album to Soundflowers (Slowcraft), though less sculpted and less formal. I've dialled back some of the intentionality and let generative methods take more of the lead compositionally and in terms of textural, granular detail.

This manifests itself into an album of gorgeous musicality created with vast technical skill. Each contains layer upon layer of detail, structured as a highly elegant and finely balanced whole. They unfurl in a serene and constantly shifting way, allowing the listener to be fully enveloped in these highly textured exquisite waves of sounds.

Minimal and perfectly formed melodic phrases dance freely within extended harmonies and ever-expanding atmospheric soundscapes - James has a way of creating ambient music that is engaging and demands close listening, and at the same time meditative and powerfully hypnotic.

This is music that rewards many listens and reveals more each time, and can be a companion to so many states of mind - truly timeless in its conception and delivery.

So pleased to share it with you, a wonderful album of breathtaking beauty. Huge thanks to James for everything, a wonderful addition to the series.

The artwork was made as always influenced by the music and idea behind the album - originating from a photo from James which was then captured with analogue photography and processed here at quiet details studios.
As usual, the album is presented on the physical edition, a custom 6-panel digipack with a separate fine art print too.

The CD also has a special long-form continuous mix of the album, representing the music in its purest form.

As a label we support the Cancer Centre - Milton Keynes University Hospital and all their wonderful NHS staff.