Draper – “Home” (Feat. Abi Ocia) (Stereogum Premiere)
24-year-old French-born, British-based producer James Draper has been prolific since his teen years. Behind the scenes he’s recently worked with Rita Ora, All Saints, and Låpsley. But his solo career has been gaining traction with some promising remixes, and he garnered further attention with his The Introduction and Draper EPs.
Now an album is in the works, which has already yielded a couple stellar R&B-tinged singles in “On You” and “All I See.” Today he shares “Home,” a smooth, EDM-infused, R&B-leaning track. Draper kicks things off with a light, wobbly synth pattern before Abi Ocia’s stirring vocal comes in. He then opens up the space around her with minimal rhythmic bass, a bouncy synth pattern, and rolling, trap-y click transitions. He pulls back the instrumentation even further on the breakdown for Ocia’s alluring bridge refrain “We find a place that we can call our own/ We seek a place that we can call our own.” Draper and Ocia combine to capture the nostalgia of home and the difficulty in creating a new place that feels like home. Check it out.
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“Home” is out 3/4 via Circus Records.