Kuma : It Depends Which Wolf You Feed

The music of Kuma has always entranced me. Canadian producer/musician/DJ James Graham makes the kind of electronic music that engages both the visceral and intellectual. Be it through the world of dance and techno; or through the floating haze of ambient via field recordings and woozy synth, Graham works in mysterious patterns and moods.

I discovered the musical world of Kuma post-2020. Graham’s music was the perfect portal into which to enter our new, ominous future. Masks still a daily presence, as well as fever checks before entering work and the echoing moans of conspiracies and “Don’t tread on me” when it came to distancing and isolation. Kuma’s music was mysterious and vast. The kind of melancholic sound world that could say so much with subtle melodies and ambivalence.

On Kuma’s latest, It Depends Which Wolf You Feed, James Graham takes the project in more ambient, hazy territory. Relying on electronic tomes to build worlds eliciting quiet reflection and mysterious soundscapes, Graham has made a record that brings us into overcast skies, foggy mornings, and contemplative headspaces.

When talking about the new Kuma album, record label Facade Electronics describes it as such: “It’s dark, sad, panoramic, moody, all things you expect from a producer with a long history wedged between bass music and ambient composition. But at the same time there’s a newly found sense of movement, a wave of motion taking you only ever forward. Somewhere tucked between the boxes and the noisemakers, there is light.”

That’s a great way to describe it. It’s ominous at times, while giving us quiet moments of contemplation as well. Graham when creating music as Kuma expertly builds sonic worlds, and regardless of whether he’s in dance mode or ambient mode there’s always a sense of mood, feel, and melody combining for serious world building. “Herd of Ruminants” opens the album and its expansive, almost cosmic sound elicits both calm and dread. It’s the sound of ease, while at unease. “Eyes Like Gunpowder and White Alcohol” is awash in synth pads and ambient dread. It puts me in mind of the work of Charles Bernstein, in-particular his work with Wes Craven.

Graham and Kuma make their most cinematic work yet. From the taut “Communal Harmony Bees” to the tribalistic “A Partner In The Eternal Ebb and Flow” to the mysterious and dream-like closer “Maybe She’s In The Stars”, It Depends Which Wolf You Feed builds a nonstop sonic journey. This is the score to the best indie horror flick never made.