eyes cast down

Early in 2011, electronic music veteran James Johnson approached the Relaxed Machinery community with an exciting project idea: an album comprising remixes of material from several of his albums. The response was immediate: 30 artists from around the world signified an interest in taking part.

In addition to submitting music for the project, eyes cast down conceived its title (by extrapolating from one of James’ album titles) and acted as a project co-administrator and editor. Greg M comments:

“It’s an honor to be included on this album, as well as to take part behind the scenes. As ever, I’m in some very fine company.

“All credit to James for his determination to give back to the music community which has supported him, and for making such fine music for many years, and kudos to everyone involved.

“When the project was announced, I had not heard any of James’ music, so I purposely took a tabula rasa approach, creating three pieces, each of which referenced more than one of James’ albums. Happily, the first of these, Two Fractured Mirrors, made the cut.

“I was most attracted to James’ piano parts, and used three of them, chopped up and pitch-shifted, along with two synth parts through glassy phasers … I was looking for something like the infinity effect of two mirrors facing each other.”

The pieces are all “purist” remixes, using only source materials supplied by James.

The artwork for this release was created by Scott M2 who, similarly, remixed James’ photographs.