Early life and The Skaters

Ferraro was born in Rochester, New York to Italian and African-American parents.^[5] He came from a musical background;^[6] his father was a musician, DJ, and record enthusiast while his mother was a singer.^[6] He began making instrumentals in high school with the program MTV Music Generator (1999).^[6] When Ferraro was 18, he moved from New York to San Diego, California, where he met Spencer Clark.^[7] He explained that "we had this conversation and it ended with us collaborating on visual art and paintings and stuff together."^[7]

When Ferraro was 20, he formed a drone noise music project^[8] with Clark called The Skaters and the two recorded music for a year under the moniker.^[7] After a year of recording, they began touring around the country and issued releases from that year of recording.^[7] Physicalities Of The Sensibilities Of Ingrediential Stairways (2008), issued on Eclipse Records, was the last record released by the Skaters.^[7]

Solo career

Ferraro started the label New Age Tapes to release his own solo work; his early solo material was often released under myriad pseudonyms such as Lamborghini Crystal and Teotihuacan, and was often distributed as limited cassette or CD-Rs, although some LPs, such as Clear (2008) and Last American Hero (2008) on labels such as Holy Mountain Records and Olde English Spelling Bee.^[2] According to AllMusic's Paul Simpson, these early recordings "explored everything from gamelan to drone to lo-fi Casio pop," and were associated with the 2000s "hypnagogic pop" trend by the media.^[2] Around 2010, Ferraro's music developed an eccentric pop style on releases such as the high-school themed Night Dolls with Hairspray (2010).^[2] He also collaborated on the 2011 RVNG ambient album collaboration FRKWYS 7 with Daniel Lopatin, David Borden, Laurel Halo, and Sam Godin.^[2]

With the release of his polarizing 2011 album Far Side Virtual ^[9] on Hippos in Tanks, Ferraro's work abruptly embraced MIDI music technology and corporate Muzak.^[2] Beginning as a series of ringtones, the album was met with both praise and derision from critics, and was named Album of the Year by UK experimental magazine The Wire; it was interpreted as "providing a postmodern critique on consumer culture, retro-futurism, and hyperreality", and along with Lopatin's Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 would go on to influence the 2010s Internet genre vaporwave, which explored similar themes.^[2] Following the release of Far Side Virtual, Ferraro's work became increasingly influenced by contemporary hip hop and R&B, as evidenced on albums such as Sushi (2012), NYC, Hell 3:00 AM (2013), and Skid Row (2015).^[2] He also released digital downloads under aliases such as Bebetune$ and Bodyguard. His 2016 album Human Story 3 returned to themes explored on Far Side Virtual.^[2]

In August 2017, Ferraro's multimedia art exhibition Extinction Renaissance premiered at the Loyal Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden.^[10] Ferraro also released a limited edition musical piece, 'Anthrospray: Music for Extinction Renaissance', on USB credit cards through the Loyal Gallery's website. On November 26, 2017, Ferraro digitally released Troll, a five-track EP.^[11] In February 2018, Ferraro officially premiered Plague, an opera with scenography by Nate Boyce, at the 2018 transmediale festival. The work starred German actor Christoph Schüchner as an "undead" Steve Jobs, "the surrogate of a deranged AI, a data mongrel comprised of all our networked activity", and also featured chorales by PHØNIX16.^[12] On May 18, 2018, Ferraro digitally released Four Pieces for Mirai, an EP working as the first part of and the prologue to the ongoing 'body of work' and project of the same name. Ferraro was featured and interviewed on the 416th cover of The Wire, October 2018.

As James Ferraro

As Lamborghini Crystal

Releases under other aliases