James Blake, Mt Kimbie, CD/SD

for a while i've been relating (possibly wrongly) James Blake to a two-step Nicolas Jaar for some reason. They seem to work with a similar pallette, ust a different grid.

Oh yeah, the two kinda go together in my head as well. I much prefer Jaar though.

I quite like their Videotape remix. I was kind of hoping the album would be more like that, although I do really like the album.

_The Darkstar album is bad. They made the wrong aesthetic choice, abandoning their "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer" sound._

^^^^^^^^^ absolutely right.

oh shit? i was looking 4ward to this, aidys girl was my jam

so like kimbie r the only
ones who followed up? even theb i could have used more sketch on glass sounding stuff

those eps have longevity tho man

the darkstar album is really good plax, use yr own ears!

I'm glad at least one or two other people hate this James Blake album. It's going to be a long, annoying year for us.

also wrt night air, is that just a standalone thing, or are burial and woon planning more 2gether. i never really cared for wayfaring stranger but im glad others did enuff for this to happen. apart from archangel and raver my favourite burialcuts are collabys

The Darkstar album is bad. They made the wrong aesthetic choice, abandoning their "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer" sound.

yeah i really hate when artists follow their own muse and do something new, instead of pandering to their most boring fans who'd rather they went in circles and repeated themselves for the next decade

at least at concerts you can shout "AIDY'S!!!" and they'll probably play the hit, though, right?

― i genuinely thought when i first joined that he was the admin (ilxor), Thursday, December 23, 2010 8:16 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Like Daniel already said, I just think their new stuff is bad. I don't care that it's different, they just took a gamble and lost, imo. The dude voice's is just not interesting.

And of course calling it the "wrong" aesthetic choice is harsh. That's the point!

I'm glad at least one or two other people hate this James Blake album. It's going to be a long, annoying year for us.

ha. while the record is obv going to get a lot of hype, i was just thinking that it's going to be a long, annoying year for those of us who like him. i'm guessing i'll want to say "but have you heard his EPs?" a lot.

i think his music works best when it's operating as instrumental electronic music, with the vocals treated like samples (even when it's his own voice). once it crosses that line where you have to compare it to other singer-songwriters or whatever, it gets a lot iffier.

anyway, he earned enough of my good will with the EPs that i'll be interested in whatever he comes up with. on the record he still has a really personal production style and his use of space is pretty much unparalleled (although there are parts where it doesn't work as well as on the 'klavierwerke' tracks), but if i had heard the full-length first i probably wouldn't have been sold.

agree 100% ^^

Kind of hoping he really blows up, I've got a first pressing of 'Air & Lack Thereof' in (near) Mint condition. :D

ppl mad overstating the phil collins cxxn w/ the jamie woon track

doesnt james murphy have the market on earning good will on EPs then ruining it with overhyped LPs

how dare james blake how dare he

This sounds okay when I don't have to pay attention to His Indie Voice. The way he boasts of his self-loathing (of course I don't blame his brother and sister for not speaking to Mr Indie Voice) makes me cringe.

so someone decided to make an entire album out of that one bon iver song

but with antonyish vocals

listening to the new album now and it's just really damn boring aside from Limit to Your Love. it's not surprising that the one track with a real melody is a cover. "unparalleled use of space" has flatlined into "where's the music".

Lex is gonna hate me even more for this, but I'm listening to this randomised with the new Nicolas Jaar, and there really ain't a lot of difference in tone, mood, ideas etc. The singing doesn't really bother me, it just sounds like another instrument. I was expecting loads of horrible faux-cockney crooning, but the vocals have mostly been manipulated so they blur in and out with the music.

AntonIver... what a disappointment this record is.

?

Good fucking God, this James Blake album is awful.

I thought you said you liked it John?

Haven't really listened to it properly yet. I want to like it, but then the only tracks I've really enjoyed so far have been L2YL and the CMYK ep.

No, I really, really like the CMYK EP but this is like Jamie Liddell or Fran Healy suddenly deciding to their tribute to 808s and Hearbreak.

But not as charming as that sounds.

It's atrocious.

Annoying thing is, there's the kindling of a great album in there - piano + subdued electronics + vocals that sound like they're sampled from 70 years ago, but the execution is terrible. It's like the Caribou album in that I can't believe he listened to those vocals again and again and decided they would in some way do.

Also, the singer songwriter aspect is being played up a bit, it's mostly the same refrains repeated over and over again.

Yeah, I agree about that. Other than "Limit", it's not indie or singer/songwriter music. Maybe this is a matter of overhyping. Only a couple of months ago this guy was an unheard-of dubstep producer making slightly subdued, sketchy tracks, now he's supposed to be some sensitive saviour of modern pop writing.

(agree on Caribou too - I don't get that album).

there's the kindling of a great album in there

this is otm, there are a few moments on this record where i think 'damn a whole album of this could be my favorite thing in the world' but with the exception of those few bits ('wilhelms scream', 'lindesfarne', the feist cover) he doesn't seem to have enough grasp of melody/harmony to pull off the 'hauntingly beautiful' look that i assume he's going for here. most of the tracks are underdeveloped, and what's there just isn't resonating with me melody-wise even though i really want it to because i love his sound palette and production. it's frustrating.

I tried to listen to this album when I was in the mood for something similar but it failed to capture my attention. It's just not a good effort.

Okay, so I listened to the whole thing on headphones on my way back form work yesterday.

It's not bloody awful. In fact the only thing that offends me about it is the autotune, which sounds like it's been applied as liberally as cover-stick on a Stevenage girl's face of a Friday evening.

So much has been made of Blake's capacity as a singer and "classically trained" songwriter that it's almost eclipsed his production talent, which I really do like. So why, with such mooted talent, has he decided to make himself sound like the fat warbling woman who takes your sandwich order at Greggs? Unlike Kanye, Blake evidently can sing, as evidenced by his deliberately deadpan delivery on "Limit To Your Love".

The use of autotune ruins so many moments, ironically making things sound out of tune, more often than not. Lindisfarne could have been an amazing piece of vocal harmonics, but it sounds like sort of a mess.

But maybe that's the whole point. This is electronica, after all, and maybe Blake is wary of aligning himself with Rufus Wainwright just yet. Had this been released on Warp for example, would this album be viewed differently? Everything Blake has done before has been idiosyncratic to say the least. An artist like this getting this kind of acclaim would have been unimaginable a couple of years ago. Since then we've had The xx, Burial, Darkstar etc, all plowing ahead with ideas of restraint and space, and receiving a fair amount of attention too.

I think the problem with this album is that it has had so many hopes pinned to it in a relatively small amount of time, yet it's very difficult to categorise. It's not really a singer/songwriter album; it's miles away from dubstep in the traditional sense of the word; and the hype factor has boosted it beyond the realms of IDM or experimental electronica. And don't start telling me it's indie,because FFS.

But in other ways, this album almost comes off as a parody of the last coupl of years of music - the autotune, the slight mockney affectations, the UK-singer/songwriter/producerness, the AC-esque vocal clouding, the dubstep influence, the XX-ness of it all... this might well be why ilxors find it so irksome, as opposed to the album sounding awful, because autotuned vocals aside, there are some quite cool bits on it.

Blake evidently can sing, as evidenced by his deliberately deadpan delivery on "Limit To Your Love"

This isn't actually evidence that he can sing, quite the opposite actually.

?

He's using that delivery to mask the lack of any real vocal range or power, is what I'm getting at.

I'd call that singing. It's an idiosyncratic style, and it sounds like he's treated the vocal a little, or slowed it down, but it works for the song. He's been quoted in interviews as saying that he prefers to flatten his vocal when he sings, influenced by certain Sam Cooke songs apparently. He has sung in gospel choirs and things too. So he can sing, but it's like he's got something to hide with the excessive treatment.

Slowest, most defective Procol Harum album ever.

I'd much sooner listen to Kerogen, if I'm going to go for Lover's Dubstep. Lovestep if you will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-Beggc2zE

last year i spent hours digging out a kerogen cd-r that had been sent to me.
all that effort for a 1 track cd-r.
then again, it was a bloody good track (not the one posted ^^ i think).

blubstep

i dunno what you lot are hearing. this album is great. and lovely. listening for the first time now. much better than jamie fucking woon in any case.

That's a relief. I was beginning to think I was the only person here who loves this album.

one of the best albums ive heard in ages. i dont know how its inspired such hate.

(apart from people being sheeplike, obv)

Love the album too, from start to finish.

Agree that Kerogen is better than both Blake and Woon.

yeah love this album a lot

that korgen track is pretty boring, lacks character imo. this stuff jacks burial better imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV9Lrt8ZVaY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS52AKvj8M0

i wish it was a whole album based around the vocoder chorale sound in 'lindesfarne', that's the most magical bit of this for me

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/03/james-blake-album-review
Petridis on the new album. Sounds like he's being a little fair on it.