Terrorbird

James Chapman is the sort of person that never does anything by half. A tall 30 year-old with a shock of blond hair, a crooked smile and a breath-taking talent for self-deprecation, Chapman is, by his own admission, completely obsessed with music.

'I think it's good to be obsessed with things,' he says. 'I love music so much ' it's my life.' He laughs out loud and recalls a recent trip to the doctor. 'He looked at me and said, 'You know James, it might be good to get obsessed with other things as well-''

Two years after Maps' Mercury Award shortlisted debut, We Can Create, comes the brand new album. Turning The Mind is precisely the sort of record that an obsession with music ought be based on. It is a completely all-enveloping, psychedelic monster of a record that retains the upliftingly melodic, melancholic feel of the debut, but reveals a bigger, sleeker set of muscles under the skin. It is a big record both emotionally and musically.

Turning The Mind has a story of change and redemption at its heart. It marks a farewell to certain parts of James' life and looks outwards towards a brighter, better future. Relationships, addiction, love, anger and pain are all touched upon in dramatic and moving ways that are sometimes tiny and precise and at other times hair-raisingly large.

So the pitch-black Let Go of the Fear ('Reality can fool no one, disguises are a form of shelter') throbs directly and menacingly like the frozen heart of an anti-matter Moroder. Chemeleon ('I can't just leave what I've become, but please don't tell just anyone') just floats easily a few feet above your head, strung out across the sky in a million points of perfect illumination. I Dream of Crystal ('With the pills and the gin, I can handle 'bout anything, but this is out of control'), is carried along by the most graceful, sweeping piano melody, while Papercuts ("I'd love to say rely on me, but mind's are changing constantly, they'll soon be gone and you'll be free") is rigorously, maniacally focussed. James' ability to direct moods feels effortless, weightless, entirely natural. The title track is almost crushingly beautiful, a choir of wonderful sadness accompanying an elegiac, electronic lament. The last track, Without You ('It's taken all my life to learn so much about you, if all I know is right, then I'll go on without you'), is a huge wave of a song, one of the most emotional pieces James has ever written, and one that only has eyes for the future, leaving the regrets and the pain behind.

'The whole album is about mental states,' James says. 'It's not all about drugs, but there are drugs on there. When I write the songs they're like a puzzle I have to solve. When I listen back to them I always apply the 'shiver test'. If they make me shiver, then they're ready to record.'

In the time since Maps' Mercury Award shortlisted debut We Can Create it's safe to say a lot has changed for James. 'That was a huge shock,' he says. 'I've watched the Mercury's ever since Suede won in 1993. I dreamt of that sort of thing. It was a surreal night ' not that I can remember much of it-'

The rest of 2007 was spent taking Maps across the world. James and his live band did a full European tour, a full American tour and a full UK tour. 'That whole time was a blur,' James says. 'I was taking it too far all the time. Everyone else knew where to stop, but I never did. I just carried on.'

On getting home James began writing Turning the Mind in the winter of 2007 and only finished it in February this year. 'Nothing's been rushed,' he smiles. While Maps' debut was recorded in his bedroom, this new record was made at The Contino Rooms with former Death In Vegas chap Tim Holmes.

'We're totally on the same wavelength,' James says. 'His record collection is amazing. He introduced me to a lot of Kraut rock bands I'd never heard of. Tim transformed quite a few of my songs and Daniel (Miller) got involved at the end too. Tim's a perfectionist, an obsessive, he was the perfect choice for producer.'

James Chapman grew up in Cobbler in Northamptonshire listening to cassettes of Suede and Blur. He was a 'Britpop kid', though he also raises his hands to a childhood love for Guns N' Roses and Nirvana. He discovered electronic music during a disastrous time studying English at Reading University.

'I had a fucking shit time,' he says. 'I don't even like reading.' The experience was made worse by the psychological bullying James suffered at the hands of a 'total freak' who lived opposite him.

Following his studies, James recorded an EP as Frail Kid ('I was down to about six stone and I'm a fairly tall bloke') after a nickname he had from school. Soon after he put together a 'monumentally depressing' acoustic set called the Couch Appreciation EP.
'It was really lo-fi, just me and a guitar and a drum machine,' he says. 'And that was the start of it all. A month or so later I wrote Some Winter Song (which later ended up on the Start Something mini-LP). I played it to a friend who is always brutally honest and he said it was the best thing I'd ever done. For the first time in my life I actually felt proud of something I'd done.'

Another friend of James' played the song to Jon Chapman at Radiate Records. He loved it and asked to meet him. 'I thought he was joking,' James says. But he wasn't and an EP ' with Glory Verse, This Transmission and Take Route was released in 2003. Radio 1 loved it, much to James' surprise. He noticed how he had begun to emerge from 'this dump I'd been in. This is what I should have been doing instead of drinking myself to sleep in a dormitory at six in the morning. '

In early 2005 James sent a demo to Mute that contained the new song, Liquid Sugar. Within days Daniel made a visit to James' house to talk about the future. 'I couldn't believe it was happening,' James says now, a huge smile on his face. 'It was such a turnaround. He came to my house in my village. He came up to my bedroom, we talked about equipment, then we went to the pub. I thought, well that was nice, but I'll never hear from him again. The next thing I knew they were offering a deal.'

For someone as obsessed with music as James, what's important is being allowed the space to create, to dream as hard as he likes. 'I was signed on potential,' he says. 'What I can do. I've always been told by Mute to take my time, to do whatever I wanted. So I really want this album to be a success. I hope people will connect with it because I'm really proud of it. It's an exciting time.'

James talks about this time as Maps phase II. The live act is now James and August ' a Danish techno DJ. It's totally electronic with August running the laptops and the, 'whooshy, twiddly bits' while James plays the keyboards and sings. It is, he insists, 'completely banging, we just sledge-hammer people.'

'I feel great now,' says James, someone who knows more than most about feeling anything but great. 'I'm able to do what I want to do and I love every second of it. Everything I've been through up to this point has just made me stronger - I've found my true path.'