'James Blake' by James Blake

James Blake

by James Blake

Release Date: 7th February 2011

Track List: Tep And The Logic / Unluck / The Wilheim Scream / I Never Learnt to Share / Lindisfarne I / Lindisfarne II / Limit to Your Love / Give Me My Month / To Care (Like You) / Why Don't You Call Me / I Mind / Measurements //

I always seem to write about music that I've been listening to for a while. Since it takes time for me to really attach to it, I have to listen to it over and over, at home, walking to uni, while I work, while I cook, when I really love an album it's all I listen to for weeks. James Blake became one of those albums for me. I originally started listening to the second album Overgrown through Retrograde, which (apart from that song) didn't grab me, but as I was walking and my iPod was going through the tracks that I wasn't necessarily listening to (I daydream, a lot, which means I sometimes miss quite a lot of songs), it started playing The Wilhelm Scream which, for some reason, grabbed me straight away. The album just got better and better as it played through, from I Never Learnt To Share, to Lindisfarne I/II, then Limit To Your Love, after this I just kept going back.

The process of how the tracks evolve are what push the limits of this album. Lindisfarne I and Lindisfarne II are two parts of one track, part one leads into part two, so much so that it feels like one track entirely. Lindisfarne I is composed so that it is the introduction of the two, with Blake singing unaccompanied, mellow and close, electronicising his voice with the occasional input of peaceful atmospheric synth sounds in the background. Lindisfarne II takes this preface and reuses the entirety of the first half (of Lindisfarne I) but further evolves the piece by supporting it with an electronic drum beat, and the plucking of a guitar driving it forward.

This two part track leads into Limit To Your Love, opened with jazzy chords on the piano which accompanies his voice singing, "There's a limit to your love. Like a waterfall in slow motion, like a map with no ocean. There's a limit to your love." The piece unfolds and alternates between the chords and an electronic drum beat after, "There's a limit to your love. Your love, your love, your love." This progresses further by combining the chordal piano part and the electronic drum beat while blending snare snaps and static bursts in effortlessly. All of this happens while Blake plays with the pitches and harmonies of his voice, at times, electronicising it too.

After becoming used to the expectations of his electronic tone throughout the album, Give Me My Month is a surprise. The piece is stripped down to just a simple voice and piano accompaniment, which gives a nice change to the tone of the rest of the album. A jazzy piano accompaniment while Blake sings smooth and effortless in the foreground, "Give me my month, as a lucky one. Let me see where she is going. Oh let me see where she has gone".

This album has become one of my favourites and it should definitely be an album that you all go and listen to, and luckily, I have given you a link below where you can listen to the entire thing right now.