James McLeod is a Canadian singer-songwriter and producer from Toronto. James grew up with an ear for music; playing and learning by ear was the method of choice after formal lessons weren’t of any interest. At ten years old he’d received his first hand-me-down fender acoustic, and that year he’d been gifted his first electric, and he never looked back.
His passion for music, and the guitar specifically, led him to the inevitable curiosity of music production; how it was made, who were the key players in the room, how songs were actually written and finished. After graduating from Harris Institute with an honors diploma in a competitive production/engineering program James was hired by The Eggplant Collective as an ad writer. For the next five years James would land compositions for Tim Horton’s, Infiniti, WalMart, Ikea, Quaker, McDonalds and many other huge brand names.
While his primary focus was instrumental lofi hip-hop production under the name LaFlamme, James yearned to be his own artist with his own voice. His debut full-length album, Is This How Memories Work?, runs the gamut of folktronic, lofi, bedroom pop and indie sounds, exploring the distortion of memories over time.
Slated for release on March 29th, the LP kicks off with the haunting single “Parkdale” about a night in this neighbourhood recounted as a dream. “All of the seemingly friendly strangers I’d met in my 20s, on closer reflection, more resembled monsters in my 30s,” James summarizes. “”Parkdale” is about leaning into your vices even when they no longer serve you merely because it’s convenient to.”