James Ford - The Hum (LP)

James Ellis Ford has been the quiet constant behind so many big records that his name already lives in a lot of liner notes. Simian Mobile Disco, Arctic Monkeys, The Last Shadow Puppets, Depeche Mode, the list goes on. He is usually the person making other artists sound like the best version of themselves. The Hum is his turn at the front, his debut solo album, released in 2023, and it plays like a studio lifer finally letting you into the room while the lights are low and the machines are gently purring.

The title gives the game away. This record is about the human noise that leaks into perfect takes, the electricity of a reel-to-reel idling in the corner, the small breath before a vocal line. Ford has always prized feel over flash, and you can hear that in every choice here. He plays most of the instruments himself, and the performances land with the easy confidence of someone who knows where to put a mic, when to leave space, and when to push the faders until the edges blur. Nothing strains for attention. Instead, the songs settle in, then bloom.

There is a steady pulse running through a lot of the album, a nod to the motorik histories he clearly loves, but it is never cold. Modular synths ripple and burr, but they sit next to softly strummed guitars and close-mic’d drums that sound like they were recorded in a real room rather than painted on a grid. Ford sings, and his voice carries a lived-in calm. He does not oversell a melody, he trusts the song. That restraint is the hook. You catch little melodies on the second or third listen, and when they stick, they stick for days.

If you know his work with Arctic Monkeys, you can clock the patience in the arrangements. He is not in a rush to get to the chorus. He lets tones talk to each other. A synth will hold a note just long enough for a guitar to shade it, and the drum kit answers with a brush of the snare. There is some of the psychedelic drift of his Simian Mobile Disco years, but translated into something warm and human. You can almost see the patch cables and the pedals snaking across the floor, the half-finished tea by the console. That intimacy is the record’s signature.

Because he is a producer, the sound is immaculate without being sterile. The bass has roundness, the high end never bites, and there is air between parts. On a good setup you hear the small details, like a finger lift on a string or the tail of a delay bouncing off into the corner. Which is why The Hum vinyl is the way to go if you can swing it. This is a record built for sides. Let it roll, flip, breathe. If you are crate digging at a Melbourne record store or browsing vinyl records Australia sites late at night, keep an eye out. James Ford vinyl tends to reward a quiet room and a level hand on the volume knob.

Stepping out under his full name, often credited simply as James Ford, he finds a middle path between producer’s polish and songwriter’s heart. Nothing here feels like a calling card, which is part of its charm. He is not ticking genre boxes or throwing every trick at the wall. He is following a line from idea to tape with clarity and care. You can hear his long partnerships echoing through the record, not as references, but as habits of attention. The drums sit like they do because he has spent years making drums sit. The synths glow the way they do because he knows how to make electrons feel like wood and air.

If you collect James Ford albums on vinyl, this belongs on the shelf next to the SMD classics and the records he has touched as a producer. It is also a strong gateway if you know him only through the bands. Start here, then trace the threads backward. And if you want to buy James Ford records online, this one is easy to recommend, both as music and as an object. The pacing, the sequencing, the sleeve in the hand, it all makes sense.

The Hum is not a fireworks show. It is a room. Walk in, sit down, let the gear warm up, feel the circuits settle, and then listen as the songs make themselves known. That is the pleasure here, and it is a deep one.