Eaton HK’s James Acey on nurturing talent and community in Hong Kong’s music scene

What does James Acey miss most about the way we used to listen? Liner notes. “I feel it adds more context,” he says of the artist thank yous and notes once found inside CD or vinyl sleeves. “I know not everyone is an album person, but if you can in some way connect the digital listening experience to the analogue listening experience, that could engage audiences in more meaningful ways.”

For Acey, listening has never just been about sound. It’s about context, too. Social, historical, cultural: it all shapes how we understand music. As Eaton HK’s director of music, he curates programmes that engage, challenge and expand his audience’s cultural horizons.

“I think our offering resonates with a certain demographic in Hong Kong, and those tend to be more critically thinking people,” says Acey. “People who are thoughtful, people who want to ask the bigger questions, or people who have a hunger for something greater than what they’re fed when they open their phone.”

Acey was raised on it. Growing up in Oakland, California, he came of age during an era when you could “record the radio or dupe albums”, he says. He’d rewind tracks, write down lyrics, dissect them. It’s this search for deeper understanding and intrinsic musical curiosity that led him to DJing and, eventually, programming music in Hong Kong.