Bubbling under on the Cardiff scene for a couple of years or so, the punky hip-hop hybrid sound of James Minas has been gathered up into an album, All My Love Has Failed Me. Emma Way is among its early admirers, and she spoke to Minas about the release and its gestation.

How have you found the reaction to the album since release day?

Minas: Really unexpected, and I’m not being fake modest there! I’ve done music for a long time, but when I did this I specifically made a point to myself that it has to be cathartic and almost therapeutic for me. So I made sure that I didn’t consider “is it listenable” or “are certain people gonna get it”; that kind of thing, I think, can kind of kill creativity anyway.

We had already put out Payday and a few singles and people enjoyed it, so I expected a decent response – but it’s caught me off guard. On the Saturday [after its release] I woke up late, looked at my phone and [saw] people really, actually get it – connecting and relating to it. It’s been nice.

You’ve been doing this for a while and producing too. How do you go about being unrestrained and punky, but still thought-out?

Minas: I was worried that [All My Love Has Failed Me] might be a bit too haphazard – I didn’t know if it flowed as an album. People are like, it’s really well put together, but I didn’t spend long putting it together. It feels a bit of a fluke, if I’m honest.

I put the song Stress towards the end, just to give it another spike of intensity, and then I wanted there to be a vague, overarching story – but I didn’t write, like, one to 12 in order. There were probably about 20 tracks and I whittled them down. Even at the point of putting it out, I wasn’t sure if it was too all over the shop. A lot of artists I work with say, “I feel like this project’s all over the place – does it work?” But as an artist you probably think it’s more all over the place than it is.

Because of the amount of things you touch on lyrically, or just in all aspects?

Minas: Yeah, like it kind of works roughly as a reflection over a period of time in my life. It’s very angry, almost ramble-y and illogical, and kind of ends reflectively. I wanted there to be a story running through it, so it was an A to B in a way.

When did you start writing it?

Minas: Two and a half, three years ago, I’d say. At the time, I didn’t know I was writing an album. I was still very new to doing my own project, but after I’d written a few tracks, I didn’t think it would make sense to be an artist that just releases singles or EPs. I felt like an album was what needed to happen.

When you started writing your own stuff, did you always think you’d touch on politics or was that something you later found an interest in writing about?

Minas: No. Well, when I started it was just going to be instrumental; I’m still coming to terms with being a vocalist. I tried rapping, singing, all kinds of stuff, from different genres. I think the [album’s] title track was the first one I wrote. I rushed it because I had the melody in my head, but my laptop had died, so I was like, I’ll just have to voice record it – and then I quickly wrote the lyrics. I think I had that one line, “all my love has failed me,” and I wrote it within about 10 minutes. It just happened to be this kind of diary entry, or like someone had a few pints and started rambling. It’s very raw, not polite – almost anti-poetry.

I just carried on doing that – writing these long paragraphs of ramblings and throwing them together into songs – around the time that I learned a lot about politics. I knew nothing about it beforehand, and then I became more and more disillusioned with it. I didn’t realise how the country actually wasn’t with us: how hopeless it feels on the ground, at working-class level if you will. So [writing lyrics] about that and mental health coincided quite well, I think.

What would you like someone listening to the album to take from it?

Minas: This is gonna sound a bit cliche, but I always write with a 16-year-old me in the Valleys, feeling quite isolated in my mind. I guess the main part is that someone listens to it and feels heard, or relates, or feels less alone; or even better, if it helps them through something. That’s always my priority.

There’s a reason the stuff I write is not commercial because I’ve felt quite isolated a lot of the time. I’ve had that feeling of meeting people and being accepted through music, and if I can, I want to spread that through it. 

When was the pivotal moment for you when you felt like you wanted to share this album with people?

Minas: Probably when I’d had it for a year and was like, I can’t not release it. A few people had heard it, and their passion for it was like, well, these are these guys who know their stuff. If they’re passionate about putting it out and wanting me to release it, it’s got to be worth it. That was about a year and a half ago, and we released Payday quite soon after. I think I was known, locally, as an electronic artist – when I released Payday people were like “what?” This is where we’re going now! So it worked, I think.

You also have that space where you could do something completely different, and people might expect that of you as well: that you’re not just going to stick to one route.

Minas: Yeah – I think the main thing for me, going forward, is I don’t want to let go of any of those aspects. I like being in between different scenes and different vibes, and bring them all together. That’s the only thing to hold on to.

Do you try to communicate that through your support acts at shows? Do you purposely pick people from different styles?

Minas: With the album launch gig I picked Sorry Stacy because, well, obviously, I pick people who I think are phenomenal. Stacey being in that electronic area and then Shlug being noisy, relentless punk, it was nice because it’s almost aspects of what I do.

The audiences I have when I’ve put on shows in Cardiff are really mixed – people from the rap scene, electronic scene, the indie scene, all this – so I want to make sure there’s something for everyone. But on the other hand, I want to introduce people to something they may not have seen on their own. If you’re going to watch one of our shows, you’re not going to get one sort of sound, so why would I put on two punk acts or two rap acts? I just try to keep it as varied as possible. 

Minas’ All My Love Has Failed Me is out now via Libertino. Info: here

words EMMA WAY