The UK artist and producer James Ellis Ford recorded an entire solo album in the hospital last year, when he was in between rounds of chemotherapy. Ford, known to most of us as just plain James Ford, used to be half of Simian Mobile Disco, and he has produced hugely consequential records for people like Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine, Fontaines D.C., Jessie Ware, Geese, and Gorillaz. Last year, Ford revealed his battle with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive form of cancer with a survival rate of about 30%. He kept making music. Later this summer, he’ll release Lost In Another World, a new solo album that he recorded during his treatment.
Ford released his solo debut The Hum in 2023, and he oversaw the extremely cool War Child benefit compilation HELP(2) earlier this year. On Instagram last week, Ford posted, “While I’m not fully out of the woods health wise, I currently have no more treatment scheduled and I’m feeling good and enjoying life.” He was still processing his diagnosis last year when he recorded Lost In Another World. Ford worked on his laptop and on a series of synths that his wife set up for him on a fold-out Ikea table, and he wrote, played, sang, recorded, and mixed the entire thing by himself in the hospital.
In a press release, Ford says, “There was no filter. I just sang the first thing that came into my head into the laptop… It was a pep talk; I was telling myself I was going to be OK. It was one way of dealing with the existential dread I felt. It gave me the ammunition to fight the experience and was a distraction from it.” Opening track “Overtones” is a shimmery, serene piece of synthpop that shows very little of the pain, fear, or anxiety that most of us would’ve felt in that situation. Its existence is a marvel. Check it out below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Overtones”
02 “People Just Don’t Know”
03 ‘‘Til Our Days Are Gone”
04 “Here Today”
05 “Parallel Dimension”
06 “Silver Lining”
07 “I Believe In You”
08 “This Too Shall Pass”
09 “Homesick For Another World”
10 “The Ever After”
11 “Did You Ever Want To Go To Your Own Funeral?”
12 “This Will All Be A Memory Soon”
Lost In Another World is out 8/14 on Domino. Pre-order it here. Ford has two upcoming live shows, 8/22 at the Green Man Festival in Wales and 9/17 at London’s Horse Hospital.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source stereogum.com ’
