James Blake, Mt Kimbie, CD/SD

it is a little long though for sure

Yikes this is horrible

Horrible for sounding like a James Blake album, or horrible compared to other James Blake albums?

I kind of liked his other albums, so I think it's pretty horrible by his standards. Really dry and dull and formulaic.

people are losing their minds over this, and i think i really hate it

Yeah, I only listened to it once. I liked it, but it seemed to be a little much; too samey. Like I said, it could possibly sort itself out upon further listens, but I would officially call my initial reaction "underwhelmed."

I hope my life is a jam

this sounds like a load of barely-bothered demos. an oddly loveless, and painful - at nearly 20 tracks - sounding album. though ive only heard it once. so maybe it reveals more with repeated plays (it did seem to get a bit better in the final third or thereabouts). almost like an album designed to irritate you with how samey it is. maybe its his way of showing he has no designs on being a popstar after his little post-beyonce brush with fame. its more like an album-dump you expect from someone brand new, rather than someone on their 3rd album.

why didn't Rick Rubin tell him to cut it down to the essentials, i thought that was his job?

This is very good hangover music.

Listening to the sample on I Need a Forest Fire reminds me that I wish Blake stuck to producing tracks like CMYK rather than trying to sing

James Blake is amazing. Come at me, bro

Specifically, his self-titled album. Deep crescendos, melodic, sad. Is there anyone like him? Nah, there isn't. It's incidiniary in its own far out, beautiful way. Have a beer on me.

Mt. Kimbie is the ****, too. Well, Crooks & Lovers is dope (just to keep this thread on topic, sorta, I guess).

I like his production and arrangements, can't stand his voice. Particularly as many other male singers working in similar milieu seem to have since adopted a similar affectedly quavery style.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55d6058ae4b0b63503024ae4/t/5964f1171b631b9e66de590c/1499787606456

First listen now. Fucking goosebumps good. 'Blue Train Lines' — oh my god.

I had pretty high hopes coming after the last record and this one, just on first impression, is already resonating extremely heavily.

sweet!

Man, this album is so good.

I liked the first Kimbie album, skipped the second, don't really get this one. It songs seem very structureless, and they seem to be trying quite hard to be so which I don't find appealing. Maybe I need to listen more carefully.

And it's got the can't-be-arsed style of singing I hate.

It seems like an improvement on the last one, and I respect them for moving on from their early style, but I'm just not into it either.

Crooks & Lovers still sounds amazing in 2017.

Blue Train Lines sounds so much like Young Fathers it's distracting. I mean, I love Young Fathers, but still.

even with the charismatic and enthralling performance of King Krule I couldn't get past the fourth track on this, in theory it's something I should enjoy but it was just so boring and life is too short

Best JB track in awhile?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYXM3uz1bjM

It's closer to his earlier approach of using his performances as grist for processing rather than making them the focal point.

That song is one of the best things he's done. Like Radiohead if they were good

That song sounds nothing like Radiohead.

It’s more like Kraftwerk if they were good.

new album is really nice, definitely his best since the debut, maybe even better than that?

he's finally come into his own as a songwriter, not just a producer, and all the collaborations are great and well integrated unlike say that terrible RZA one from Overgrown

talking about James Blake's Assume Form of course, though Dominic Maker from Mount Kimbie did co-produce most of it

"Mile High" is very Forest Temple-core

i've never been a huge fan but I really enjoyed this album on first listen this morning , went well with the snowy train ride .

I'm traveling but very much looking forward to this when I get back.

he's finally come into his own as a songwriter, not just a producer, and all the collaborations are great and well integrated unlike say that terrible RZA one from Overgrown

I've got a soft spot for this one.

CANDLE LIGHT DINNER OF FISH AND CHIPS WITH VINEGAR

I expected it to be crap after the Colour in Anything. Pleased to say my expectations were way off. This is his best album so far. It's weird how good he's been on record thus far and I'm able to just say this new one is easily his best after just a few listens. Really a great album.

I hope Dom (maybe Kai!) from Mount Kimbie get higher profile work after this. They've been good (and only improving) for three full lengths and a bunch of EPs. Definitely co-credit Dom for the strength of Assume Form.

yeah it's quite a turn around and i agree it's his best - i still like his debut a fair bit but after revisiting it i found it falls off towards the end. surprised this got panned so hard from p4k when they published much more positive reviews for the last two far weaker albums

The first line of that p4k review is annoying re: "confessional" songwriting. I thought it was long established that he doesn't actually have any siblings?

Yeah, that Pitchfork thing is just stupid.

"Suffocating seriousness" <— They're reviewing the wrong album. That was Colour in Anything.

And, I'm sorry. No album that contains the line "Ass fatter than a peach" can reasonably be accused of taking itself too seriously.

Total idiocy. Assume Form is awesome. Done talking about it.

Had this playing in the background and forgot it was on, so ... mission accomplished? But then “Can’t Believe The Way We Flow” caught my ear and pulled me back in. At least for that song.

His covers (Feist, Joni Mitchell, etc) are great, also his singing, his production, but his actual own songs are just nothing-y, and they fall apart like a cheap suit. Maybe it's why his covers are so well known but his own stuff? Not so much. Put a gun to my head i couldn't whistle a note of any of it. They sound like a sample pack on shuffle, like.. 'Hey this might be nice when it's finished'.

I know what you mean, pisces. Assume Form rectifies that, though. I think mostly, because he came out of the dubstep scene, his songs have felt aimless in the past. He was trying to be a dubstep singer / songwriter, so it was more about manipulation of sound over traditional structure. He's finally found his balance on the new one. It's easily my favorite new album since King Krule's last one.

Revisiting the Colour in Anything this morning and yeah. . . a handful of strong moments, but it's mostly just kind of rambling; which is exactly what I said about it when it was new three years ago.

And, jesus christ, fuck Justin Vernon. This song is just absolute dogshit.

Thank you piscesx I’ve been feeling insane not getting it

Prefer his non vocal stuff tbh

Also, this little aside has made me think about what would I put on my own "best of" playlist for JB. And it's made me go back through and discover some absolutely unique and esoteric pop music. I'm thinking songs like:

'Lindisfarne'
'Retrograde'
'The Willhelm Scream'
'Overgrown'
'Modern Soul'
'Digital Lion'

And about half the new album.

I've always thought of him as someone who has ambitions to be a pop star, sell out stadiums, and win lots of awards. . . but he's just too eccentric. Like a Robert Wyatt for millennials or something.

@ piscesx, yeah, my assessment of James Blake recently was "the world's most successful songwriter whose never written a song"

tbh I enjoy his production so, so much (especially on "Digital Lion", which Austin mentioned) that he's more classic than dud for me, but I hope he develops a voice as a songwriter sometime soon

the new album is the first time his songwriting's really done much for me consistently, it feels much stronger and more focused/less meandering than before - "into the red", "barefoot in the park", "power on", and "don't miss it" are all great songs not just great production

i like the s/t a lot still but the strength there is the production and the way he gets so much out of small melodic phrases like on "the wilhelm scream" (one of his absolute best still even though the melody is sampled from one of his dad's songs) and "i never learnt to share". i've never figured out quite what's going on rhythmically in "unluck" either

overgrown is just a bit of a mess to me, it has a lot of ideas but they don't really cohere anywhere near as well, there's a lot more focus on his weaker songwriting, and the sound design felt like a step down from the debut. i love "digital lion" and "retrograde" at least

i don't really remember much about the colour in anything at all, it's just so long and keeps the same mood the whole way through but "i need a forest fire" is really nice

Is 'unluck' is the one with the quintuplets in the drums?

I like him as a producer first, and he's had some great moments blurring the lines between 'voice as an instrument' and 'what is a song, really?' But also some bad moments where it veers too far into singer/songwriter territory and can only be judged on those terms.

Anyway I still haven't heard the new one and I'm hoping for the best, but the EPs (and most of the 1st album) are underrated these days.

Oh dear. I'm sorry to say that if that was the standout track on the Colour In Anything for you, the rest of the album is going to be a real challenge.

Look at it like this:

'I Need a Forest Fire' : The Colour in Anything :: 'Friday, I'm in Love' : Wish

Thing is he IS a star, he sold out terminal 5 few years back. I had a comp and went, thousands of Williamsburg waterfront condo types unsure of what to do, looking at phones, etc

And I stand by my "Robert Wyatt for millennials" in that case.

I think more David Sylvian, me

Robert Wyatt for millennials

David Sylvian

i guess i'm gonna have to finally give this guy a listen

James Blake has written an article for world mental health day and it seems, amongst the other stuff, that he's an only-semi-reformed incel

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2019/oct/james-blake-on-mental-health/