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Buy The Numbers

by Harry James

supported by
celluno
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celluno Harry James with a beautiful album here... true artistry!! Salute!! Favorite track: Kid Icarus.
Kafka963
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Kafka963 J'adore votre album. From Dogs toi Ducks m'a accroché sérieusement. Favorite track: From Dogs To Ducks.
Charlie Moonbeam
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Charlie Moonbeam Extremely tasteful piano/drumbeat record... keeps the mind wandering and the heart rate regular.

I keep coming back to this record. A huge favorite from this year. Favorite track: Kid Icarus.
Andrew Jervis
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Andrew Jervis Fantastic piano and percussion showdown with nods to Sun Ra and YNQ. Favorite track: From Dogs To Ducks.
harold lasvegas
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harold lasvegas Loving this one! The whole damn album is great. It’s pairing perfectly with Colorado winter weather and our lifted heads. Favorite track: Alice Runs The High Life.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

  • Limited Edition Compact Disc
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD version. Only 50 printed.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Buy The Numbers via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • DIY Vinyl Version
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Do It Yourself version of Harry's first release, specially for you on 12/02/2021. Comes in a hand glued photo cover with gold stamped white labels , a numbered and signed business card, a replica post card, as well as a "Buy The Numbers" dollar bill, signed by the man himself. 25 copies that we held off from the original pressing, just so we could drop it today, to play the numbers. "Buy The Numbers"

    Includes unlimited streaming of Buy The Numbers via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Vinyl LP
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    We were sent 53 extra covers with the original pressing, so we decided to press up another small batch! This is the second pressing version, with white labels/black text. This will be the final pressing of this record for eternity, so if you didn't get it on the first go around, here is your chance.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Buy The Numbers via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

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The Strut 01:47
4.
Dapper 02:34
5.
Kid Icarus 02:23
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9.
A Risen Brew 01:51
10.
Bum Rush 01:59
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Last Dance 02:03
14.
Twenty Three 02:53

about

Born in New Jersey and bred in Chicago’s underground music community, Harry James Brenner Jr. has built a practice termed in composites. As a longtime member of ensembles like Killer Whales, Chandeliers, and Songs For Gods, Harry’s work to date has encompassed a wide range of formats and styles, from experimental electronica and punky afro beat to MPC-chopped jams and jazz-inflected post-rock. Though trained as a percussionist, recent years have seen his contributions expand to include the piano and keyboards, allowing him to explore musical composition from synchronous angles: approaching beats from a tonal perspective, highlighting the rhythmic potentials of melody.

This dual vantage serves as the foundation for Buy the Numbers, Harry’s debut solo LP, out now via Potions Music (Queens, NY). Released under the moniker Harry James, this new collection is an exercise in mining the creative possibilities of constraint: fourteen smoky instrumentals, each under three minutes in length, which find Harry limiting his instrumentation to upright piano and percussion, building fluid compositions whose concise arrangements neatly interweave color and cadence while leaving room for epiphanies found through improvisation.

Brenner performed and recorded Buy the Numbers on his own in a series of after-hours sessions at Chicago’s venerable Shape Shoppe recording studio/loft (RIP), constructing his tunes one take at a time. While his methods were strict—no punching in, no manipulation, each song completed in a single night—the resulting works are striking in their handmade intimacy: with the album’s spacious production allowing each element to stand clearly in the mix, Harry’s process offsets careful craft with intuitive feel, creating a vividly honest sonic document.

In keeping with Harry’s diverse resume, Buy the Numbers varies greatly in both mood and points of reference: where upbeat tracks like “The Strut” and “Bars for Freddie” merge cycling melodic patterns with urgent kit work and skittering percussion (think Mulatu Astatke-meets-Jaki Liebezeit), lower-key cuts like “Dapper” and “Alice Runs the High Life” evoke figures ranging from Erik Satie and Mamão Conti to Alice Coltrane and Rashied Ali, unfolding as if the arpeggiated flourishes of Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou were set to Madlib’s subtly off-kilter timing. The result is a crate digger’s dream: a suite of sample-ready grooves that echo the past while remaining unrooted in genre and time, a product of personal vision that leaves itself open to new possibilities.

credits

released January 21, 2021

Design by Lisa Armstrong
Mixed and Mastered by Nick Broste
Video by Billy Dufala and Andrew Brearley

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all rights reserved

tags

about

Harry James Chicago, Illinois

Harry James Brenner Jr is an American composer based in the south side of Chicago. His self recorded songs include acoustic piano & percussion, recorded using analog tools & techniques. His process is serious & deliberate reflected in his output both sonically & structurally. “A crate diggers dream” Harry’s works invoke a time seemingly gone,but yet to be experienced. ” ... more

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