James Blake emerged as one of 2010’s brightest new stars,
wowing the post-dubstep scene and beyond with his colourful
CMYK and
that Feist & Gonzales cover, but also delighting the
underground consistently with his haunting, mature take on ‘step and
electronica. Sources behind the scenes told us to expect something “very
different” from his 12”s and so on, and so we went into this debut album primed
for something sophisticated, vocal and delicate.
Introducing intense Auto-Tune effects on his voice on the
album’s opening track Unluck is
perhaps an unwise move given that many of us still have Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak lingering in our
head, but it’s used in a twisted and artistic enough way to merit its inclusion
– warbling dizzyingly over the track’s sharpened synth stabs and punchy kicks. Throughout,
Blake’s vocals are panned wide and mixed so as to be the main focus by some
distance. The idea, he said, was to recreate what he hears in his own head when
he sings as faithfully as possible, and the result is entrancing, hypnotic,
striking and original. Subtle tremolo on the pseudo-R&B slow jam of The Wilhelm Scream heightens the
engulfing quality further – especially when listened to on headphones, he’s
achieved what he set out to do in a seriously accomplished fashion.
I Never Learnt To
Share introduces some of his most masterful vocal harmonising, up to 3
parts twisting and turning in loose and disparate unison, and showing him to be
something of a genius in the department – an intense crescendo of Teddy
Riley-esque synths rising gradually out of the pared-down beginnings to make
for an orgasmic finale. When Auto-Tune is reintroduced on Lindisfarne II, it’s an unwelcome and unnecessary reintroduction for me and probably the only slight blemish on the album.
Limit To Your Love
needs no introduction, and seems not to wane at all with repeated listening;
pristine, lush piano and Blake’s tremendous voice at its most naked and
enjoyable, juxtaposed by terrifying shakes of sub bass and the simplest of
percussion. Oddly enough, Give Me My
Month follows directly on and presents him again very much like a male
version of Feist, delicate and assertive by turns, and feels very Christmassy
at the same time. To Care (Like You)
gets the electronic feel back on track though, masterful glitch-work and a
disorientating array of differently-pitched vocal lines creating a most
unearthly tapestry.
As Measurements
lays the album down to rest with the soulful Christmas carol / spiritual feel
once again, you’re left with a sense that perhaps the most rewarding aspect of
this album is that until he released Limit
Of Your Love, no-one really saw this coming. We didn’t know about that voice, or those songwriting
abilities, and it makes for an incredibly exciting and fresh discovery.
This is a truly bewitching piece of work, with a stunning
aesthetic quality, and it’s one which is both daring and immaculate and
presents something truly new both for electronic music and for the non-pop
singer-songwriter mould. An album of the year, without a doubt, Blake’s
originality must be saluted and it will be fascinating to see where he goes
next and how this 22-year-old (!) develops. I couldn't say whether it will be a resolute commercial success, but it's beauty certainly lends it more than an air of accessibility.
And if you’re disappointed with
this album, you’ve probably only ever heard that
single, and most likely, are also an idiot.