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 jim noir interview
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Squeezing strange sounds out of Manchester. In a warehouse rehearsal room across from Tesco’s in Stockport, solo artiste Jim Noir is tuning up in preparation for a live UK jaunt to coincide with the release of his debut long-player, Tower Of Love. Although he feels happiest over in Chorlton, among the streets he still calls “home”, 23-year-old Alan Roberts charts a sun-dappled soundscape a world away from the Northwest’s ghostly industrial past and the stark, quick-build shopping schemes. Noir’s music is all easy days and witty, off-the-cuff lyrics, “made up as I play”. “Music comes easily to me,” he chirrups while confessing, “I’m a very lazy man. My manager has to phone to get me out of bed on a morning.” Having previously earned his crust as a “data input clerk” in a bank, Jim’s music-making hobby now brings home enough bacon for him to call himself a professional. As an office bod, much of his 9-5 was spent “formulating a musical career”, initially manifested as “pure electronic music” which he ditched upon realising “it wasn’t getting me anywhere”. Noir’s current direction features gorgeous layered harmonies and lush-sounding samples that suggest a very skilled musician-cum-programmer at work – a young man at one with his software. Jim is a proper instrumentalist, however, a one-man recording machine playing acoustics and electrics as well as squeezing strange sounds from analogue circuitry. Breezy, often beautiful and surreal in its imagery, Noir-world juxtaposes suburban odes to kicking a football into a neighbour’s garden and smashing his gnomes, with loopy long-hair bliss-outs that thankfully fall shy of whimsy – the bane of much neo-folk and psychedelia. Also, Jim’s Mancunian accent remains among the feelgood American melodies.  The dapper Mr. Noir; Jim and monocular friend. A crate digger with a penchant for groovy soundtrackers like Lalo Schiffrin and John Barry, Jim admits to “ripping off stuff” – putting secondhand vinyl through the software mincer or nicking bits to strum and plonk. And while he rates sex-change Moog wiz Wendy (formerly Walter) Carlos’ stunning score for Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, Noir’s own 60s-tinged cinematic whirls recall lovely la-la-la soundtracks for French New Wave films. Noir is a hep cat for sure; he’s got a certain “it” yet wears influences from spy films to jaunty musicals and West Coast love-ins on his vintage silk shirtsleeves. Despite his sartorial nous, Noir shrugs off the fashion thing, saying, “I put f**k all emphasis on clothes, apart from in photos – I just don’t want to look like one of them bands in jeans stood against a wall, that’s all.” Tower Of Love is a focused yet varied trip through Feelgoodville, via Jim Noir’s cigarette and coffee-fuelled imagination, one capable of flooding the listener with optimism. Dour he is not; proud of his dank hometown he is. “I wanted to get out, but then I always want to come back to Manchester,” he says. “When I get back here I wake up and always feel like something could happen.” It has, and how.
Stuart Turnbull
Jim Noir - Tower Of Love, released 05 December 05 on My Dad Recordings.
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comment by geezerbadger
Jun 5, 2006
Accept no substitute - Jim Noir is electro pop. Saw him at the myspace myfestival gig at spitz in london and it was amazing. Record-play provide a live recording at http://www.record-play.com/recording/show/Jim_Noir... .
comment by cr78boy
Dec 10, 2005
I've been spinning all three singles here in Chicago from the beginning.Just got his album. In my top five for the year.
comment by wonderlake
Dec 6, 2005
Jelly said that Jim Noir was at a party we went to on Saturday night. However I remember very little from it.
comment by mr_fahrenknight
Dec 2, 2005
I love Jim Noir, he's just great.Can't wait to hear the album and would love to see him live. We tried to get him for our night in Nottingham but apparently the tour's all booked. Dang! Never mind.
comment by garethinrockport
Dec 2, 2005
jim's music is stunning! Without sounding too poncy it's full of contrasts that sit together beautifully - cinematic and pop/ simple and complex. I can imagine spending many a late evening and Sunday morning listening to the album. Fantastic stuff!
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