Big Casino
James Hardway
(Hydrogen Dukebox)
Reported Monday, January 12 2004
Courtesy of Jonty_Adderley @ www.skrufff.com
Always too wilfully independent to be truly appreciated in his native England, James Hardway, aka David Harrow aka Teknova has spent over 20 years living his musical dream through stints in London, Berlin and Bangkok. Taking in spells playing with Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart, German star poetess Anne Clark, Adrian Sherwood's On U sound system and Genesis P Orridge's Psychic TV he's amassed a CV that's both impressive and intriguing, leading him now to Los Angeles for his latest persona James Hardway.
Originally conceived in 1996 to allow him to release drum & bass anonymously, his music has mutated considerably, stretching the original drum and bass bedrock to incorporate further his over-riding themes of gambling, Los Vegas and the Hollywood vision of Americana. The result is an original, accomplished, cinematic jazz style record that's electronic, melodic and a damned good listen.
You try and please everybody with a record but ultimately the person you have to please is yourself," James told Skrufff in a recent interview. "And despite having made records for 25 years I still have no idea what people like or don't like," he added.
In fact, lots of people, particularly in America, are loving his new album, and it's currently nestling against Basement Jaxx's new opus, as the second highest new album on the RPM Top 40, at 20, just 2 spots of BJ.
Big Casino is out now.
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