Davey James has created this recent body of work titled Delica performing an iPad with a small guerilla drum kit simultaneously. Recorded entirely live without loops or overdubs strictly using second-hand equipment, recycled sounds and green technology. James hinting at various eras and genres in his use of up-cycled music including; delta blues, footwork, juke, death metal, 60’s folk, ambient and 70's rock that present a fresh flavor of new.
The Ontario native is an audiophile that just happens to be drummer. Over the years James has found the “drummer world” to darken and cast a shadow over the instrument and discovered to follow the road of traditional drumming would be castrating in distinguishing his voice. James is less interested in technique and more fascinated placing musical ideas in interactive motion. His sampledelic approach extracts, traps and repositions sounds from their original context, creating new work that illuminates his favorite-recorded music.
These extracted sounds are used in form of quotation but divorced from there origin. These milliseconds of recycled music are presented in new linear movements, highlighting the core philosophical value James upholds in crafting music this way: Preserving the human soul in the digital revolution. The sonic result is entirely different when the repositioned samples are experienced, creating a new center of focus. The new experience becomes flesh morphed with machine moving together in unity, a technological civil rights movement. Delica is not electronic music, not acoustic music but "free feeling" soul music that presents honest and truthful moments. Recycled music filtered through a rhythmic human machine.
Davey James has performed on, produced and engineered hundreds of projects across North America. James started taking producing and engineering seriously after working for Rick Rubin in Los Angeles. James has worked with artists from major labels: Columbia, Wind Up, Warner Bros. and Capital records. He is an ethnomusicologist with a PhD that specializes in the sonic signature of multi-award winning Canadian music producer Daniel Lanois. He is also a laid back guy.
“Dave, you are generous, prompt and made of good” Daniel Lanois