James F. Coleman is an American musician who plays keyboards and sampler. He was a member of the 1990s noise rock band Cop Shoot Cop, and afterwards worked as a solo musician specializing in instrumental electronic music and film scores.
He was a founding member of New York's Cop Shoot Cop, and performed under a variety of stage names: Cripple Jim (he toured on crutches due to a broken leg), and usually as Filer. For most of their existence the band had two bassists and no guitar, leaving Coleman's keyboards to occupy much of the middle-frequency range normally filled by a guitarist in a rock band. Coleman's use of found sounds and other unusual noises was described as "inventive" by critics Art Black David Sprague of Trouser Press.[1] On Release (1994), Cop Shoot Cop's final album, Coleman relied more on conventional piano playing rather than his early sample-based approach.[2]
He has recorded solo albums as Phylr and the closely related project Here (with Teho Teardo) and collaborates with JG Thirlwell as Baby Zizanie.[citation needed]
Most recently, Coleman has released the ambient album Trees (2012) under his own name. He has been doing sporadic live shows of this material in Europe and the US.[citation needed]
Additionally, Coleman has scored a good number of indie films and TV series. Indie features emerging in 2014 are "Exposed" by Beth B and "Stay Then Go" by Shelli Ainsworth. He has worked with directors such as Todd Phillips, Hal Hartley, Richard Kern and Danny Leitner.[citation needed]
Coleman is currently[when?] working on a number of music tracks that are based on recordings of people's near death experiences.[citation needed]
In 2018–2019, Coleman co-formed a new group called Human Impact.
