Jamie works under the pseudonym James Joys. He is a composer and producer who quarries the seams between electroacoustic, classical, electronica, and errant-pop.
He has scored works for choir and electronics, produced avant-garde electronica, kaleidoscopic techno, performed and recorded improvised sampler-collage with Gwilly and Freya Edmondez, written, arranged and produced two albums of avant-pop for his band Ex-Isles,and composed and performed modernist song for a modern ballet/opera called 'A Different Wolf' for Cork Midsummer Festival in collaboration with Brian Irvine.
Based in Belfast, after studying and teaching music in Newcastle upon Tyne and Bristol for fifteen years, he released a collection of “electroacoustic rave entropy” called Super_Tidal in October 2018. Exploring ideas of occurrence and withdrawal, turbulence and suspension; sediment and plastic, this experimental electronic work is heavily influenced by painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer.
Jamie’s choral and electronics work of modern lamentations, A Constellation Of Bargained Parts, co-written with Pete Devlin arrived on March 1st 2019, performed by Derry’s Codetta, and was followed by the unstable technicolour electronica of Fugitive Wound and acidic deep cut KINK. Jamie iscurrently working on Sovereign Bodies / Ritual Taxonomy, an experimental project at the intersections of opera, turntablism, open/graphic scoring, improvisation, and electronics, using texts taken from the UK Home Office’s sprawling border infrastructure and private contractors. Supported by Dumbworld and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Artist Career Enhancement Award, the project sees him collaborate with an opera singer, an experimental turntablist, an ensemble of improvising musicians, and refugees and immigrants in Ireland.
He is also working on an album for experimental jazz ensemble in collaboration with spoken word poet Felicia Olusanya, Elliot Galvin, Catherine Sikora-Mingus, John Pope, Shane Latimer, and various other musicians recording remotely throughout the UK and Ireland.
