James Blake, Mt Kimbie, CD/SD

mrdreamnyc MR. DREAM by rifftrafft
Also...one free Best New Music to the first chillwave band that names itself "James Blake the Tennis Player"

i lol'd

Its more electronic than dance though, you can be one without the other. He does make dance music in other places like... But not here. Doesn't really matter though.

i do find it amusing that james blake the producer's rise to prominence coincided EXACTLY with james blake the tennis player falling out of the top 100

I by no means love this album; I by no means hate it either. I'd be interested to hear why people who hate it do though - especially those who like his previous stuff, but also Lex. Not trolling, but I'd like to hear it articulated into words beyond "it's awful".

my cousin represents the tennis platwe -- i should ask her about this james blake

you never mentioned that your cousin represents tennis players j0rdan!!! :O

lol "platwe"

yeah she works for IMG

dog latin: http://twitter.com/lexpretend/statuses/20406733859987456

OMG DOES YOUR COUSIN MANAGE VERA ZVONAREVA TOO??!!!

lol idk

don't really hear the "indie" vocal; that's just a British accent (although I hate that kind of Jamie T inflection on many many UK indie tracks). Plus the vox have been so heavily treated, I can barely define whether it's indie or not.

rudimentary production? don't know about that. the auto-tune certainly, although I can't quite tell if its use is intended as some sort of super-post-modern joke or not. if he'd taken the vox off completely, I wonder what sort of album it would have been.

better but still not remotely approaching good

you didn't even like CMYK or Footprints (the two tracks most people agreed were his best) did you?

I'm fine w/ his vocals when they get chopped to fuck and/or autotuned but he just does not have the voice to carry off what he's going for, also he does this glottal stop thing which boils my piss

a lot of it isn't even auto-tune, it's vocoder. anyway i think the production is exactly what he intended, since he's obviously capable of a more muscular/filled-in style. i do think the record's got some issues (which i've detailed a couple times upthread), but there's still a lot to like. it's just too bad it's so hyped up now.

you didn't even like CMYK or Footprints (the two tracks most people agreed were his best) did you?

i didn't HATE them, but they're just nothingy and a bit awkward, especially compared to what so many other producers in this field are doing - i can't see any reason to pick those out specifically for praise

A lot of the producers in this field are pretty rudimentary when it comes to production, I mean you listen to Guido or Joker or Girl Unit and you don't exactly think "wow amazing sound design".

I really like CMYK but anything with that much of 'Caught Out There' is going to appeal to me, it's a bit of a shame he didn't go further down that road. Louis Pattison is OTM in that there's not much wrong with the sound he's going for but he's just not a strong songwriter and so can't sustain the interest in those elements.

Joker is more put together than it seems at first glance. He just does it in a pretty raw way. His synths sound massive, well worked out and there are plenty of layers to it, but its not over done. He's a beast.

didn't even recognise the sample in CMYK was from Caught Out There (doesn't really affect my liking of it either way tho). really glad i heard it randomly before i read anyone else's yaying or naying. heard Limit To Your Love on headphones only the other week and the subtle deep bass on it was a real surprise (warms me to it a little more).

the quietus guy fucked up cos he seemed to think blake is like the dubstep bon iver or something, a singer songwriter type of guy. which is just all sorts of wrong. he was fair in his general assessment of the album, but didnt really give it enough credit for what it DOES do brilliantly.

"I mean you listen to Guido or Joker or Girl Unit and you don't exactly think "wow amazing sound design"."

if you dont think that listening to joker who do you think that listening to?

also, the whole 'awkard' crit doesnt really add up listening to the album. if you were talking about say the bells sketch ep then okay yeah, i could see that, but the album seems to get rid of a lot of the more annoying idm weaknesses. sure his voice is a bit awkward but not interferingly so. its appropriately, emotively frail imo.

i wonder how reactions to this record would be different if all the vocals were mixed like 3 db lower than they are

(at least on the songs that are basically one line repeated over and over, like 'i never learnt to share')

I think Blake himself has mentioned Bon Iver as an influence, I know Mount Kimbie do as well. So thats maybe where that comparison comes from and gets over stated. But yeah he isn't a singer song writer he plays with those ideas but genraly just loops shards of it into his work rather than sitting down and making a full on song out of it all. He uses his own voice in a more upfront way than he did with the vocals on his other EPs but its still a simular method. Bits chopped up here and there, looped all over the place, harmonizing with himself with the aid of technology... I dont think he's trying to be a singer song writer that seems to be more Jamie Woons thing than James Blake.

Really, the industry should have latched on to Woon more than Blake, yeah.

i think the industry has definitely latched on to woon as well

is woon shit? he seems to be. jamie lidell was better.

I really like Night Air, but not so much anything else.

I had assumed that Woon was a house producer with a guest vocalist. Only recently realised he's a songwriter. Who produced Night Air (Original Mix) though?

burial

I really like this Woon track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dw1PTtu2dE

Night Air is pretty cool to, I like the Ramadanman remix best.

He's alright otherwise not massively my thing.

Woon produced Night Air Burial just added some flourishes here and there. Woon wanted Burial to do more but it didn't work out I don't think. He's more a random session type guy on this stuff and the album I think.

decent and fair review -
http://www.factmag.com/2011/02/04/james-blake-james-blake/

Can I just

how did he get signed to a label that gave us Spose's "I'm Awesome" and Godmack's "Cryin' Like A Bitch"? How is this going to work out in his favor at all?

Because he's awsome and makes people cry like a bitch?

^^

this album is too expensive on vinyl. fucking dubsteppers with their quintuple pack fetishes.

the actual title is 'Cryin' Like A Bitch!!' come on ppl these things are important

I think Blake himself has mentioned Bon Iver as an influence, I know Mount Kimbie do as well. So thats maybe where that comparison comes from and gets over stated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_cePGP6lbU

Yurrrp thats the track I think of when Blakey talks about Bon Iver's influence on him.

"CMYK" and "Limit To Your Love" were two of my favourite tracks of 2010, but I couldn't stand to listen to more than three tracks from Blake's album. There was only one reason for that: the HORRIBLE vocals. But I'll try again, when I've summoned up enough nerve.

actually LOL'd when i heard 'Unluck' - so bad but am kinda curious about why make something sound like that. i can imagine Telefon Tel Aviv doing something a bit like it altho that would hopefully sound not quite as (intentionally) messy and less irritating vocals.

the sunday broadsheets were all giving this four stars and record of the week. but in a way that felt sortof like drake getting good reviews, like they were racing to "first" it

You know, if you listen to these songs not as like verse-chorus-verse songs, which they clearly are not, but as electronic songs with vocals used as another layer, as samples, really, the album is better. To me, at least. Because I think it's obvious he's not writing traditional "songs."

"I Never Learnt to Share" is surely some elaborate prank.

"Unluck" is actually quite interesting for about a minute.

Went to see Ramadanman the other night and he played a remix of "I Never Learnt to Share" that actually made it good. Hopefully it sees release

having not heard that Bon Iver song I thought the Lindisfarnes were just doing a Laurie Anderson thing. And I still kinda do, professed influences or not.