James Blake, Mt Kimbie, CD/SD

fwiw I do think James Blake is "really different" - it doesn't sound like either the Mount Kimbie album (which more or less sounded like what people expected) or the Darkstar (which was conventional in an unexpected but uninteresting way). There's not much out there that sounds like JB, and I'll rep for the album from this angle (if from no other).

and i agree that it's not the big pop crossover that the labels were hoping for, but i've played some of it for friends here (like midwest u.s. girls who have no idea what dubstep is and would never, ever listen any of the dance music producers that lex is mentioning) and it makes sense to them on a singer-songwriter type level, whether or not the songs are there (of if that's even the "point").

the reason that blake got signed and bok bok and jam city and all them didnt is cos he makes electronic music built more for home listening and they dont, duh. and who cares if its not the big pop crossover - thats not his fault hes being marketed like that. this is something youd expect to be on hot flush or hyperdub really, not a major. its actually very fucking cool its being promoted like it is (though a bit worrying for him, i hope he can handle it, and i think im about to get bored of seeing him hyped so much).

There's not much out there that sounds like JB

theres plenty of other records that sound like garbage

Ok, maybe I'm overstating the weirdness (I've only listened to the album twice and may never do so again) but I was struck by the way that many tracks are just difficult to listen to (and not just "because they're crap") and require more tolerance than I credit £50 man and friends with. Something like Lindisfarne I is crazy, not because of the "O Superman" vocals but because of the stretches of silence throughout the track.

um i think everyone's managed to "get their heads around it" fine, both lovers and haters - it's not like he's doing anything particularly weird that's ~beyond our ken~

I dunno -- the one thing that gets me is this widespread kneejerk that seems to go: (a) he's singing, so he must be trying to do some kind of crossover singer-songwriter thing, and (b) as a crossover singer-songwriter thing, this is tuneless and boring.

Whereas to me it seems really, really clear that he's not actually trying to make conventional voice-and-piano stuff. I mean, pretty much all his efforts are concentrated on these odd structural and textural choices. Just the pure organization of the songs -- they don't move forward melodically! They're mostly organized around their proportions changing! Etc.

I feel like I've read a few things that seem to see it as a ridiculously failed attempt to make singer-songwriter stuff -- as if he tried to make a normal record and is somehow just so dumb that he doesn't know how, or never noticed how pop songs work? -- and that's the one spot where, you know ... I sorta think that reaction is missing what's happening on the actual record and just reacting to the idea that switching to voice and piano must mean making pop. Which is exactly the idea he seems kinda perverse about deliberately fucking with here.

xpost -- (I agree about "home listening" and would add terms like "evocative" and "atmospheric" to that -- as soon as someone coming from a dance direction gets good at those things, the immediate question is how to wrap their "evocative atmosphere" around conventional songs. Obviously I find it kind of cool that Blake totally reversed that here, like "how about I use a familiar singer-songwriter setup but use it for structurally odd purposes.")

Whereas to me it seems really, really clear that he's not actually trying to make conventional voice-and-piano stuff.

lol, well...

'conventional' is a bad hinge, i guess, because sure, ok. but even attempting to subvert or 'reinterpret' w/in the 'voice-and-paino stuff' context/genre/mode you need some dialogue btw what your attempting and the conventions your looking to subvert

ugh this p badly argued but i dont really want to relisten to jame blake but my point is basic the old saw of you have to understand something to disregard it & a) blake is still working however unconventionally w/ in a certain mode b) he sounds p tone-deaf to what makes music w/ in that context work c) as work outside the trad 'song' mode its really boring & just sort of bad & im not sure what value it has divorced from that tradition.

i don't think he's trying to make a conventional singer-songwriter album, but his "odd structural and textural choices" are neither all that odd nor particularly effective, whatever he's trying to do with them. (also: using singer-songwriter tools - ie one's VOICE - and fucking around with the s-s format isn't a particularly esoteric choice; isn't this what most (electronic and other) producers who choose to strip their music down and use vocals do? and haven't many actual singer-songwriters from scott walker to tori amos already fucked around with their own format and abandoned traditional songcraft in their various experiments?)

there are some obv s-s-type tracks on here but theres a lot that really isnt- like wilhelms screan and learnt to share (when he gets a bit more s-s'y i think the album isnt quite as good).

I feel like I've read a few things that seem to see it as a ridiculously failed attempt to make singer-songwriter stuff -- as if he tried to make a normal record and is somehow just so dumb that he doesn't know how, or never noticed how pop songs work? -- and that's the one spot where, you know ... I sorta think that reaction is missing what's happening on the actual record and just reacting to the idea that switching to voice and piano must mean making pop. Which is exactly the idea he seems kinda perverse about deliberately fucking with here.

this is right. & ppl hating on this album itt not rly bringing the heat -- idk maybe you have to care abt uk dance music to get upset abt this album? the relentless use of repetition & phrasing is really interesting and the way he works with it really interesting. feel there is a relation b/w the minimalism & intimacy of the music that is p powerful too

altho a lot of this sounds like that autotune chorus at the end of that song on the kanye album & obv it's clear lex would hate these vocals so w/e

idk maybe you have to care abt uk dance music to get upset abt this album?

i've been thinking this too

not that i love the album, it seems find to me & i get how if you were into the idea of manipulation in the manner he deploys it that you could find the album to be really interesting

seems fine*

idk maybe you have to care abt uk dance music to get upset abt this album

actually it's the people who don't care at all about uk dance music (or even electronic music in general) getting most upset about this record. because they're checking it out because of the hype, with zero context, and being totally underwhelmed by what's kind of a small, weird, line-straddling record.

that's pretty much the opposite to what I've observed but that's diff't samples for you I guess

i listened to it last night kind of hesitantly, having been into bells sketch for a few days but ultimately getting over it & i was p astounded and i care the least abt uk dance music than like anyone -- i think u are disappointed because there arent any cool beats jordan. could see someone being underwhelmed by this album but to me it's the opposite

well i'm not totally unreceptive to this guy -- i think "limit to your love" & "wilhelm's scream" are both amazing, but nothing else has really struck me as that good, but i plan on listening to this a bit more, so who knows

i meant the other Jordan who just posted in this thread, sorry for confusion

it'll be p funny when all the mags & sites who panned this will have it on their eoy lists now that p4k likes it

nah, at this point i'm not even talking about whether or not i like it, just the hype/backlash. i don't mind the beats (or lack thereof) at all.

have many mags + sites panned it? in the uk all the press love it

i just might not have actually read any of them, think i just misread a post upthread

i've seen complaint from both ends -- it's not an electronic record, it's not a song record -- so he's definitely in some no-man's land. lex, i'd agree with you that plenty of people have made music this structural and sculptural from similar tools: I guess i tend to like that stuff in about the same way I enjoy this, sorta clocking the choices they're making to create a new format for themselves.

it really is strikingly low on event and high on dead air, though, so i don't exactly begrudge anyone finding it really really boring. (although i would note that i found it more boring on first listen, because i was waiting for it to work a certain way, and less boring a few listens in, because i'd noticed the structures it IS using.)

idk is this james blake album actually dubstep, even his pre-lp stuff was barely dubstep. i guess it had bassiness and two-step rhythms, now it just is sortof bassy

btw i like this album?

i'm not really sure, you'd have to ask yourself

idk maybe you have to care abt uk dance music to get upset abt this album

actually it's the people who don't care at all about uk dance music (or even electronic music in general) getting most upset about this record. because they're checking it out because of the hype, with zero context, and being totally underwhelmed by what's kind of a small, weird, line-straddling record.

― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 1:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I think Jordan and flopson are on the right track, and are saying the same thing I said up in this thread. I like the album, but not sure exactly how much yet.

I think it's pretty obvious why Blake has generated so much hype vis a vis other post-dubsteppers: pretty much every release has gone for a very specific sonic (and even conceptual) angle quite distinct from previous releases, so there's a sense of an emerging "narrative" in his work. You could call this "the Aphex Twin model".

This is like catnip for a lot of music critics, (a) because it makes reviewing any particular release more interesting in that you can do the whole "where has he come from, where is he going?" thing, and (b) more generally, that internal diversity makes of Blake's work its own "genre" which the critic can reflect on without reference to other producers, other music etc, so the auteurist emphasis of most music crit is not impeded by the "scenius" quotient habitually associated with dance music.

Nicolas Jaar has benefited from the same dynamic. The proportionately larger hype for Blake is mostly reflective of the fact that there's more critical goodwill towards the idea of an auteur emerging out of post-dubstep than out of post-minimal (which has already had a surfeit).

(compare/contrast with most reviews of individual Night Slugs releases which are usually half about the label in general, half about the specific release - reviewers are less inclined to abstract away from the context in which the specific artist is situated and so the spotlight is less sharply focused on the artist herself)

I think major labels (consciously or otherwise, but I'm willing to bet consciously) are very good at picking up on those signals, and can recognise when an artist is generating hype that is detachable from their scene-context and thereby more ripe for crossover. Whether or not Blake's label expected the album he gave it is a different question.

Yeah, xpost Tim. And I think the Jaar is more interesting than this, tbh.

lol postminimal

oh, the nicolas jaar is so many leagues better than this and has got maybe 1% of the attention.

pretty much every release has gone for a very specific sonic (and even conceptual) angle quite distinct from previous releases, so there's a sense of an emerging "narrative" in his work

huh what? i have...not noticed this at all? i mean his EPs have been "coherent" but...so are many electronic EPs? and i haven't noticed that with jaar, either. everything you've said about him you could say about girl unit or subeena.

also tim's post is kinda depressing w/r/t how critics and major labels work.

ugh what he's covered "a case of you" now??? LEAVE JONI ALONE

I think it's pretty obvious why Blake has generated so much hype vis a vis other post-dubsteppers:

pretty much every release has gone for a very specific sonic (and even conceptual) angle quite distinct from previous releases, so there's a sense of an emerging "narrative" in his work. You could call this "the Aphex Twin model".

This is like catnip for a lot of music critics, (a) because it makes reviewing any particular release more interesting in that you can do the whole "where has he come from, where is he going?" thing, and (b) more generally, that internal diversity makes of Blake's work its own "genre" which the critic can reflect on without reference to other producers, other music etc, so the auteurist emphasis of most music crit is not impeded by the "scenius" quotient habitually associated with dance music.

Nicolas Jaar has benefited from the same dynamic. The proportionately larger hype for Blake is mostly reflective of the fact that there's more critical goodwill towards the idea of an auteur emerging out of post-dubstep than out of post-minimal (which has already had a surfeit).

(compare/contrast with most reviews of individual Night Slugs releases which are usually half about the label in general, half about the specific release - reviewers are less inclined to abstract away from the context in which the specific artist is situated and so the spotlight is less sharply focused on the artist herself)

I think major labels (consciously or otherwise, but I'm willing to bet consciously) are very good at picking up on those signals, and can recognise when an artist is generating hype that is detachable from their scene-context and thereby more ripe for crossover. Whether or not Blake's label expected the album he gave it is a different question.

he's cute

i am not going to listen to this. calm. calm.

a cover version as your debut mainstream single is a dubious tactic already imo. to continue relying on them is indicative that MAYBE YOUR OWN COMPOSITIONS ARE PISS WEAK.

lol j.blake is s0 not the cutest post0dubstep artist

he has the bieber-esque pretty boy face, easy on the eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrVgCCUQ3fQ

i am not going to listen to this. calm. calm.

a cover version as your debut mainstream single is a dubious tactic already imo. to continue relying on them is indicative that MAYBE YOUR OWN COMPOSITIONS ARE PISS WEAK.

― lextasy refix (lex pretend), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 3:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

But the "cover song as your debut single" is a longstanding tradition in music; it's not like Blake is the first to do this. Yes, I think it's troubling, though.

huh what? i have...not noticed this at all? i mean his EPs have been "coherent" but...so are many electronic EPs? and i haven't noticed that with jaar, either. everything you've said about him you could say about girl unit or subeena.

Yes you could say this about Girl Unit in particular, but also Girl Unit is about as hyped as it's possible to be after only two releases (you don't win the ILX poll without a sh*tload of hype, frankly) so this really supports my point rather than contradicts it.

Re Jaar - listen to "A Time For Us", "WOUH", Marks and Angles, the edits, the stuff on Ines, the album - pretty much every one of these is in a markedly different style.

people are forgetting Blake has Britskool backing - that gives him all kinds of support other people wouldn't get, ensures he receives greater exposure and a visibility that inevitably leads to the press taking notice and people bothering to form opinions off the back of that hype. see also half the UK artists in the top 40 now seemingly (inc Jessie J, Katy B). that said a lot of people surely liked the CMYK EP before knowing anything about him (true in my case, and why i was quite surprised by LTYL).

but he's not really making dance music at all so why compare him to those (who also DJ but, crucially, DON'T sing) that do - massive difference.

Yeah, "WOUH" was my introduction to Jaar, and it sounds nothing like [/i]Space Is Only Noise[/i].

people are forgetting Blake has Britskool backing

what does this mean

blueski you mean Brit School as in, he went to the actual school? I thought that was Jamie Woon

Yeah Girl Unit is prob further on than James Blake was with hype at this kinda stage in their releases... I mean IRL and Wut where both massive inside and outside the scene. Way bigger than James Blakes two early anthems Sparing The Horse and the Stop What You're Doing remix, he's then gone onto release three EPs after those singles a fair few remixes and an album, he's just further on Girl Unit will catch up and do his thing in his own time. Sayin that I can only really see Girl Unit crossing further into electro scenes and other areas of dance rather than into indie like James Blake has. Nothing wrong with that of course. They're both just diffrent. I didn't expect this James Blake album to get this much attention to be honest. Its a pretty low key album. I really dig about half of it so far, gonna let it slowly sink in while people get angry on the internet about it lol

whoa, lex is going to love this -- i'm listening to that bbc interview and apparently "wilhelm's scream" is a cover of a song by his dad? the original is some awesome yacht rock.

yeah i'm mistaken sorry (not because i was confusing him with Woon, thought they both went) xposts.

Re Jaar - listen to "A Time For Us", "WOUH", Marks and Angles, the edits, the stuff on Ines, the album - pretty much every one of these is in a markedly different style.

i don't know if it's that marked tho - obviously the various singles are different, but not "conceptually", or in a way that's particularly pushed. the edits were a free giveaway that didn't seem representative of jaar or reflective of any "narrative" (and also weren't that good). inès was a label comp so had another different context. at no point did it ever cross my mind that "whoa, nicolas jaar has changed direction". the album is substantially different, but by now the hype you talk about has been established already.

brit school backing is a good point, i'd forgotten that - and i guess that also partially explains katy b breaking through instead of kyla or ny or miss fire or ahu or whoever.

oh ok brit school not a good point after all!

But the "cover song as your debut single" is a longstanding tradition in music; it's not like Blake is the first to do this

is it really that common? i was thinking about this when we covered blake and anna calvi on the jukebox and...i couldn't really think of any other examples!

also i think it's way more problematic if your schtick is that you're an auteur.

his rapid rise to prominence just reminds me of the BRIT alumni, albeit reflected by critical love/hate rather than actual hit songs