ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 7TH 2011
1YRON’S TOP 52 RECORDS OF 2011 RANKING: #15


In a fantastic review of James Blake on Tiny Mix Tapes, Jakob Darof begins by drawing a necessary parallel between the record in question to that of Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, and how fans can build hype around an album by declaring it the best of the year before that year has even begun. It’s telling that the hype surrounding Blake’s record was all the more impressive given the fact that it was released some five weeks into 2011, and that it was also a debut release from a relatively unknown, unestablished solo artist. What I find interesting about this phenomenon is the way in which an artist can so quickly be built up only to be torn down and washed out just as fast. Watch Lana Del Rey storm the charts on both sides of the Atlantic this week with her self-titled ‘debut’, regardless of its negative critical reception. The music industry is a fickle business, but it moves in clear circles on an annual basis. Blake is no longer the buzz-word on everybody’s lips like he was one year ago. Will Del Rey be as popular in twelve months as she is at present? The general consensus was that Merriweather went on to claim the accolade of best album of 2009, whereas James Blake did not (that title would go to an album released seven days later). Both records still feel relevant and will no doubt continue to be so.


In 2012, it feels more important than ever for emerging artists to retain an air of mystery about their person. In the Information Age where exposure has become standard, less is more, and the idea of what is not revealed is more compelling to listeners than warts and all excess. James Blake tailored his year in 2010 in such a way that ensured he was on the tip of every critic’s tongue by its end. In 2009 he debuted with his 12” single Air & Lack Thereof, but it wasn’t until his formidable triptych of EPs, beginning with The Bells Sketch, that really began to generate a buzz. CMYK and Klaiverwerke both followed, each with its own distinct slant on Blake’s talents, each advancing on the latter’s efforts to build both his reputation and his diversity. The Bells Sketch introduced him as one of the freshest new dubstep producers on the scene before CMYK came along to throw in his knack for sampling American R&B and a more rhythmic urgency. Klaiverwerke took us to the point at which Blake was ready to showcase his plans for his debut LP by demonstrating his skill for sculpting melancholy silence from minimalist beats, piano melodies and his own distorted vocals.


That point is clarified throughout James Blake, with much of these arrangements relying on a gentle patience and regular intervals of negative space, silent pauses that puncture the very fabric that Blake is stitching together so seamlessly. If nothing, James Blake is a rigorous exercise in restraint, a continual process of climax and come-down. Blake understands the drama that can unfold over the course of four minutes and it’s these gaps between his minimalist bedroom-production technique that lay the foundations. Foundations, as fundamental as they may be, need to be built on. It’s here where Blake excels, for his songs exhibit an extraordinary tensile strength in being pushed to their limits, and to their potential breaking point. That point may or may not arrive, but it’s an idea that warrants constant replay. There are two particular examples of such tension; one floats whilst maintaining its ambience as the other explodes under its own density. The Willhelm Scream builds around a prolonged static which grows in size until Blake’s vocals are drowned out, fading into the dark hum, literally engulfed behind a wall of noise that threatens as much as it caresses. It demonstrates a rise and fall in equal measure, a sort of curved pyramid technique. I Never Learnt To Share, meanwhile, follows a similar format as an array of clicks and beeps rise behind a bass which grows all the more arresting until the point of its break where synths erupt in a dazzling collapse. It’s often what is not said that is most affecting, and Blake has become particularly skilled in sculpting cavernous arcs of dead noise and utilising it to make his vocal contribution all the more affecting.


There’s plenty to explore through James Blake on a merely instrumental level, but it’s with Blake’s vocals that the record truly shines, setting itself apart from almost anything else released in 2011. It’s important to understand that James Blake is a vocal album first and foremost. Descriptions of post-dubstep are only partially true and can feel like a lazy assessment of a record which is never exclusive to just one aspect of its influences. Blake uses the vocal (note: his own vocal) as a means of communication with the listener. No matter what he does to that vocal, whether feeding it through auto-tune, looping it or repeating it, the connection between the listener feels at a constant strength. Comparisons to Justin Vernon and Anthony Hegarty can’t be helped, and indeed, there’s an element of downbeat melancholy present from both these in Blake. Comparisons to Burial have been considered, but Blake’s vocals throughout the record always feel incredibly human; the inaudible vocal samples of Burial’s Untrue are harsh and alien in contrast. Blake uses repetition very well and it’s on The Willhelm Scream and I Never Learnt To Share that he allows single lines of words to loop whilst focusing his attention on the building noises behind them. The idea of an interlude reinforces the idea that James Blake is closer to a sort of electro-R&B record than anything else, and these are present in Give Me My Month and Why Don’t You Call Me. The former is a beautiful piano ballad which works perfectly at its brief length, again, giving more by taking away. The latter begins in a similar fashion before plunging into a sort of crevice as Blake distorts his vocal into something completely unrecognisable and astoundingly emotional.


Despite its relatively short run time of 38 minutes, James Blake can at times feel disjointed and at odds with its surroundings. As a result, firm favourites may be established sooner than usual. There are highlights for sure but the beauty of this record is how even the most minimal of arrangements can slowly endear themselves over time. Lindisfarne I and II arrive in quick succession after one another, cleaving the looped ambience of the opening three tracks. It’s the most stripped back offering on the record, remarkable in its sparsity and late night focus. The first half recalls the layered vocals of Imogen Heap with a wonderful contrast caught somewhere between robotic and soulful, but more than anything it’s confirmation that James Blake is a record invested in pop even when all the sonic foreplay points elsewhere. Blake’s cover of Feist’s torchsong Limit To Your Love arrives halfway through the record and its positioning feels deliberately placed so as to remind the listener of his impressive development. As such, Blake takes a stark turn on tracks like To Care (Like You) and I Mind which supply beats of a much more rhythmic nature, giving his melodies a pulse to circulate around. This doesn’t always work in his favour; James Blake can be an intimidating, often cold listening experience. Opening track Unluck feels lopsided from the word go as the auto-tune literally warps Blake’s vocals into an irregular pattern, out of sync with even the clicking back beat that serves to keep it moving in an albeit serpentine manner. This shouldn’t be mistaken for a criticism. Rather, it’s a frustrating pleasure.


The year in question for James Blake was a remarkable one in which the artist emerged separate from the producer. James Blake isn’t a self-titled record for nothing yet it’s curious how old it already feels after one year. The biggest advancement in his sound came with Klaiverwerke and it’s clear now that James Blake builds on that aesthetic just as much as it carves out a place all its own. In hindsight, it’s a clear marker of Blake’s progression as a sonic experimentalist, but also of the style he has managed to so successfully claim as his own. His catalogue is already impressive; Blake followed the release of his first LP with Enough Thunder and Love What Happened Here, two more EP releases, the former an extension of his vocal-heavy treatment whilst the latter celebrates its own arrival as a nod of nostalgia to the days of The Bells Sketch and CMYK. If 2010 was about exploring Blake, and 2011 was about establishing him to a wider audience, 2012 should be about endurance and a level of commital to the wonderful sonic landscapes he has created. At present, his primary calling card is versatility. Whether sitting down at the piano to relay the more obvious takes on Joni Mitchell (I for one would be interested in getting his spin on some latter-half Court And Spark) or embracing his own disorted vocal lines shot through by trenches of negative space, half the fun of listening to Blake is not knowing where he’ll take us next.