James Bernard

About the artist

James Bernard is a California-based sound artist and audio engineer whose three decades in music have yielded some of the most notable ambient electronic works of our era, both as a solo artist and across an array of collaborations.   The landmark début, Atmospherics (Rising High Records, 1994), placed Bernard in the upper echelon of producers during the initial golden age of cerebral electronic composition.  Its journey through spaced-out synth layers and disembodied vocal découpage landed with confident force, and many of its motifs and methods have been extrapolated and explored throughout the prolific discography that followed, leaving distinct sonic fingerprints on each entry.   With his considerable base of knowledge, and an evolving process born of intuition and improvisation, Bernard primarily uses synths, TB-303 and – more recently – six-string bass guitar for its particular warmth and range.  His output runs a gamut from the celestial to the terrestrial, all of it imbued with careful pacing and melodic mastery.  Highlights include Atwater (A Strangely Isolated Place, 2019), Fragments (Past Inside the Present, 2019) and the acid-tinged a sliver of silver (self-released, 2022).   James also releases music with his wife Cynthia as awakened souls and under the moniker Influx. His new project Almost An Island has their debut album coming out this summer.