James Blake, Mt Kimbie, CD/SD

i think i need to hear this really late at night

they've pretty much dropped any uk bass/purple wow influence they had

i'm not disagreeing, but 'blind night errand' seems more like a straight dubstep track than anything they've done before

yeah maybe, first listen etc. I guess its partly to do w/ the dubstep that my friends listen to which is way more aggressive than the stuff that i was listening to around the time of Maybes

After a few listens this isn't really measuring up to the EP's for me. Seems like they're using a lot of the same tricks but in a less effective way. And then there's something like "Field" (I'm guessing the title is a nod to Axel Willner) which is pretty cool but the awkwardness of the transition just kills it.

I like this

i like this, too. i understand the burial comparisons (hollow-sounding song-structures, diva-voices), but it's a really different vibe.

mind you, i love burial's work. this is just different.

i think my favourite Blake things are the remixes he did under Harmonimix

Bills Bills Bills - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDWHGz2ma_Q

A Milli - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGcOVgv3P6A&feature=related

Ugh that A Milli mix is horrible

(sorry, thanks for posting though!)

RA podcast, about the billionth mix i've heard this week w/ actress on it. not a bad thing though.

you've heard a billion mixes this week already? excellent work

actress is great in a billion different ways though, hes got a track that'd fit pretty much anywhere

good time management

i think i remember reading that he'd never heard a milli before, just came across the acapella.

What is this, microstep already?

not heard the mount kimbie album yet but the ep reminded me of four tet, definitely.

wow, this before i move off song, from the mount kimbie disc, is one of the best things i've heard this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ7AF8IG7Eg

By the third track I was all ready to dismiss this as dull instrumental trip-hop dubstepped up a bit but then it suddenly opened up and became kinda lovely. Carbonated is so so great.

Still think it opens weakly though, maybe if you're going to be this textured and low-key you need to balance that with being more melodic?

what is the idea behind that cover tho? every time i see it i think its some piss take or something from vices dos and donts section that makes me think mount kimbie are a bit cuntish.

Liking CMYK

had to drive to work at 5 am today and listened to a podcast mount kimbie did for xlr8r, sounded so great when it was dark and no one else was on the road. excited for the new james blake ep too.

Slept on the Mt Kimbie album until a few weeks ago. My feeling is similar to Matt DC's - lame frontend but it really picks up from Carbonated on...love this one:

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

actress' splazsh is one of my favourite albums of the year

also oneohtrix point never and some other dude have a project called games that is in a similar vein to all this post-dilla c&s rn'b ish

"C&s rn'b ish"
Great sequence of letters. Anyway the Kirbie album has turned out to be one of my favourites of the year. Still not really getting the hype with James Blake

The cover is so brilliantly odd and compliments the sounds perfectly.

Somebody is due some loyalties. Some pie money

i don't really think games sounds like this it all - it's more in the blurry synth vein, with a few chopped up vox thrown in, and more straight ahead rhytmically.

also, i feel like i made a mistake lumping blake and mt kimbie into one thread -- maybe this could be just the mt kimbie thread?

yeah, the games stuff i heard wasn't really about the beats.

not to be all ilm contradictarian jerk ... i do wish games sounded MORE like mt kimbie; more chopped vox, less synth noodling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xluhIFKZi9M

Pretty dope, no?

Sorry, I only just heard this

games is pretty beats, maybe less so than jb or mk but not as much as you guys are making it seem

youtube for reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bd1RhWNOIo

yeah i really like that track but it's coming from a different space musically than the titular artists on this thread; it sounds, well, american, cause it is -- the loping, more hiphop derived beats, as opposed to the step rhythms of mk/jb. but this is splitting hairs. im glad all of this music exists

teflon dong

yeah that's true about hip hop beats but hip hop beats are beats too you know. glad u like it and i am not being laughed off of this thread though :)

games is pretty ~chillwave~ tbh

that games track is cool but i still think the drums are entry-level (which is fine because it's not especially drum-focused music, and everything else is done really well).

games has nothing to do with this bros

games is 80s retro stylings, james blake and mt kimbie are looking forward not back

cutty calls it, consider it cut(t)

this is the games jam anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXWIVLrHdI8

pariah is similar to james blake and kimbie

cutty otm

*frantically packs all worldly belongings into a suitcase, grabs a fedora and pulls it down over eyes, sniffles, suppresses a tear, takes one last mournful look upon thread, exits*

how is that possible that someone made dupstep that is more boring than burial

how is it possible that your actual opinion is more boring than your attempted zing

i think you misunderstand the term "zing"

how is that possible that someone made dupstep that is more boring than burial

crazy talk (^^^^^^^^^^^^), but whatevs.

(the "burial is boring" part, i mean).

anyway, challop noted

my problem with blake (haven't listened to mt kimble) & stuff like this is that i think the 'r&b influence' is even less present & contextually interesting in his stuff than it was in burial's stuff, outside of "archangel" -- i keep reading people talking about like, when the bass drops in this blake joint & the space opens up in that blake joint and i don't really hear what's interesting about, for instance, the 'false ending' of sorts in "i only know" -- taste is taste obv, but still i don't see what the "ideas" here are

& i know that this sort of comparing apples & oranges, or at least that this kinda dubstep (does it have a genre name? i legit don't know) & purple/wonky stuff have grown out of the same seed but now aim to do some very different things, but in stuff like joker & guido i can see the influence of shit like timbaland & other rap production & see where those dudes have used that as a launch point for their own ideas -- purple/wonky stuff seems to me like the influences are more synthesized & put to use in a more interesting & 'better' way than blake/kimble

but maybe i'm searching for things that aren't there, idk

i hear a lot of r&b and rap production influence in blake/kimbie, and maybe it's just a matter of perspective but i find their beats to be way fresher and more interesting than the stuff that's more obviously influenced by timbo/southern rap beats.

the r&b thing is pretty obvious in tracks like these below, but what really gets me about mount kimbie is their sense of structure and space. the tracks are relatively spare, but everything is exactly where it needs to be, nothing is extraneous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGvuw4s01TU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4JdN6gwotc

maybe kimbie & blake vs joker & guido is a minimal/maximal divide, or introverted/extroverted

idk, i love the xx -- maybe it's more about digging "sound construction" & the use of space -- i find that i like when rap/r&b productions utilize space creatively, but maybe not a whole sub-genre of music that's about the use of space

special guest last night at a deep medi night :

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FcZePaBWAAAsQVy?format=jpg&name=large

my lad went for goth trad, but said that james was 'quite something'.

Kai's half of the Mount Kimbie record is probably more to my tastes, but Dom has become a pretty great rap producer. Feels very lived-in, which makes sense he's been playing the L.A. game for awhile now. Both sides sorta feel like mixtapes to get other gigs but also lots of nice stuff, and I'll probably listen to it more than any of their last few albums.

Haven't listened to the new record yet but I'm into his Mixmag mix, lots of unreleased bits and edits, takes me back to 2010 - 2012 (except with a lot more house vibes for 2023).
https://mixmag.net/feature/james-blake-cover-dj-mix

Overall I'm glad he's back around to DJing and thinking about the dancefloor, can only be good for his music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=615pYYcd2AE

said i just want you
to know that you are really special
oh i oh i oh i oh i

was not expecting to completely fall for the new james blake lp today

I need some more listens, it kind of floated by on headphones and I actually think that this is a non-headphones JB record, but I love to hear that.

On a nerd level I listened to his RA interview and he was saying that he built most of the tracks around snippets from modular synth jams (and that looking at a DAW on a laptop ruins his day now) and you can totally hear that. But the keyboard playing & singing (which still must be manipulated on a computer I assume) keeps it Blakean.

loved that mix.

james blake is probably the most insane 180 degree turn i have ever done on an artist.
used to pop into Fopp during my lunchhour and his debut was always on.
hated it.
fast forward to a couple of years ago when one of my lads bought me 'assume form' for xmas.
and yeah, that penny dropped hard.
his recent mad video re 'big hammer' = massive WTF.
loved it.

Haha wow, I'm the exact opposite. Obsessed with the first three EPs and the debut album, and while I've liked a track here and there since, I've been mostly wanting him to release something that gives me the same feeling. And I think Big Hammer is the worst track on the new one, lol (it is a cool video though).

i love Big Hammer.
such a mad mad track for a supposed major artist ..

I'll give it another shot. I want him to make even madder tracks like he used to!

also .. album release today.
yet his website/amazon etc says sept 22 !?

i think i love Big Hammer cos it's clearly james just having fun and trying to break out of the sadcore groove that he is predominantly known for.

latest jb has won me back. "i want you to know" is maybe my favorite thing he's yet done and the rest of the album is crazy diverse in the best ways. chaotic and experimental one moment, pretty and beat-heavy the next. really feels like he's pushing himself again. he's definitely not on autopilot for this one.

gearing up for the new mount kimbie, i found this live recording of 'maybes' off the crooks+lovers sampler-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKkFGYgzF1o
mount kimbie - 'maybes (live in berghain)' (2010)

New album is amazing. Strong Motorik vibes

From the singles it sounds like they've fully transitioned into indie rock, which is not super interesting to me. Definitely a bit of trend among dance and dance-adjacent producers though.

i mean city planning was all straight up beats...

but the new album is back to their more song-oriented material. definitely sounds like the spiritual follow-up to love what survives. they had quite a few songs available pre-release + it's only a 35 minute album. overall it sounds like them ―which is indie synth nerds who grew up on new wave, hiphop, + rave. "empty+silent" is early soty status.