James Blake, Mt Kimbie, CD/SD

Uhhhh classic? I'm loving the Mt Kimbie EPs and the new James Blake one, CMYK. Anyone else feeling this? Or is it being written off as like sub
Burial or some wack thought like that? What else sounds like this?

Went to Mt Kimbie's album launch in Brixton t'other night, without having heard their music before, and their live set seemed a bit ponderous and timid to me. Every time they finally launched into a groove they had spent ages building up, it seemed to stop dead after no time at all. I'd probably all work better on headphones. The big-glasses wearing Hoxton types inhabiting the place seemed to be into it. Joy Orbison's subsequent DJ set was banging, BTW.

Listening to Maybes on their MySpace now. Nice, but yeah, Burial-like is the first thing that came to mind.

i'm all about this stuff, looking forward to some full-lengths

i don't hear mount kimbie as being especially burial-ish, it reminds me more of telefon tel aviv, or maybe a nicely updated '90s idm vibe

Yeah, I don't hear Burial at all?

james blake is like the most stilted lurching creepy music ever. in a good way though, you know

Everyone remotely connected to dubstep must now be compared to Burial by law.

Isn't there a Mt Kimbie album out imminently or did I imagine that?

there is a mt. kimbie full length coming out very soon

oh hey, july 19

mt kimbie is great to smoke weed to, but how does one dance to it ?

The Bells Sketch is absolutely brilliant.

whats good of james blakes then? is he REALLY that good? people are raving about him like hes the new burial (regardless of whether they sound alike).

"CMYK" the song (and the cut up vocals seem excessively Burial to me) and the EP really bored me. Haven't heard Mt. Kimble though.

listening to cmyk. this is actually pretty cool surprisingly. i was expecting it to be really boring. but its got a really nice quality about it.

really not into james blake. pleasant but oh so boring.

james blake: untold remix > the bells sketch, mount kimbie remix > harmonimix > CMYK, air & lack thereof > pembroke. lex kinda otm though, it's a great sound for the first 15 minutes but withers a bit in the GENRE SAVIOR spotlight

& the only real similarity to burial is the er 'hauntological' aspect, no? much more pronounced in the 'maybes' ep than anything else though

this is better than just pleasant. i thought thats what it would be but its... a bit better than that.

i don't hear burial in MK at all. it's way more bright and colorful.

yup, and pretty.

i can't point to a james blake track that's really blown me away by itself, but he seems like a multi-talented dude and i like where he's going with it.

nothing danceable about this stuff though.

blake sounded like sub joy orb to me

Mount Kimbie Sketch on Glass EP is excellent. Haven't really got into any Blake I've heard so far.

really enjoy Mount Kimbie on record BUT saw them live for the first time t'other week and my god were they boring lifeless plodding and a number of other things that are not fun to watch.

James Blake is pretty patchy IMO but when he gets it right, like on the Untold remix and "CMYK", he gets it really REALLY right.

in retrospect lumping them together may have been a mistake, leading to admittedly misleading burial comparisons at least regarding mt. kimbie.
think the burial influence is pretty undeniable for blake tho, if not necessarily a point that needs to be dwelled upon ... anyways i guess what i really was curious about was how people felt about the lack of danceability. i love how the dubstep rhythms are reappropriated -- in something like
blake's remix of 'maybes' -- and twisted into these shuddering, almost-danceable-but-not-quite forms.

the thing is, I would have thought the same thing, but I have seen both CMYK and the Destinys Child remix absolutely destroy dances. kind of made me take him a bit more seriously, ridiculous thing to say I know.

would love to hear the Untold remix on a good system, never had the pleasure.

The Mt. Kimbie remix of LV & Untold's 'Beacon' was seriously nice. Been listening to that a lot.

http://factmag-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Crooks-Lovers-Front-Cover.jpeg

http://boomkat.com/cds/310793-mount-kimbie-crooks-lovers

very excited for this, in spite of the cover.

it's awesome

http://www.factmag.com/2010/07/12/stream-hear-mount-kimbies-crooks-lovers-exclusively-on-fact/

:D

omg @ that cover

This is fuckin A. Wanna say its kinda four tetty though, they've pretty much dropped any uk bass/purple wow influence they had

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

there's definitely an ambient quality to Kimbie, which is something I like about them, but it sounds like that's not your thing.

such awful music

i feel a dance/rnb purist vs. indie dilettantes (including myself in latter) vibe to this thread. i saw blake compared to htdw the other day and while i felt that was off base, i guess maybe blake/kimbie et al are, at least for me, slightly more about atmosphere than dancing, although upthread that dude talks about blake killing a dancefloor, which, honestly, i feel like i'd have to see to believe.

when i listen to this (micro-step? ughhh) i find myself constantly enthralled by the tiny little details that jump out; when i listen to something like a crazy cousinz mix (nb i'm horribly out of 'step' with most purple/wonky/uk funky discourse) i tend to focus more on the whole track and how it moves

baja what do you dislike about it?

Running with this contrast, you could say Blake/Kimbie and Joker/Guido have different intentions for their music while drawing on similar sound palettes. Jordan talks about introvert vs extrovert; I think home vs "out" also makes sense here. Kimbie especially fall into the post-ecstatic ambience of Burial etc. and I think they do it very well; the best songs on Crooks and Lovers have a more interesting construction than Burial's shuffle+smear though I wouldn't say they have quite the same emotional impact. Purple-wow tracks are plugged in to the energy of hanging out in the street, dancing in the club; listening to them at home feels almost inappropriate.

Blake's music is kind of in the middle for me - I can see it being more danceable than Kimbie, but to me it's less compelling somehow. I haven't yet heard a Blake track I really dig on (well, maybe "Footnotes"). Bear in mind I'm an "indie dilettante" in uptown churl's parlance.

Yeah i feel like Blake is being slightly over-hyped for what he's done so far. For me he hasn't produced anything that's up to the standard of Mount Kimbie's first EP.

i would agree w/ that having relistened to CMYK in light of this thread's revival

i bet he's going to blow up when he eventually makes his piano & untreated vocals record

fwiw not feeling the new one at all upon first listen. honestly my favorite blake moment is his remix of MK's "maybes"

i don't think pariah is nearly as interesting as these guys btw. more danceable, sure, but his sounds and ideas are way more stock.

(i do like the dubstepped-up amens on that new track though)

"crooks and lovers" = lamb (remember lamb?) for 2010

except it's not corny bullshit?

(i didn't remember lamb, i had to youtube it)

Seeing Mount Kimbie tonight :D

Hope they don't sound like 2010's equivalent to Lamb, though.

uh

it's the less tracky, song-oriented, wistful defanged indie home-listening version of popular dance music

how is it not - by definition - corny bullshit?

what do you mean by "defanged" exactly?

they don't really write "songs"

i mean if mt kimbie bit your leg it wouldn't hurt (unlike if, say, dizzee rascal bit your leg)

they do too write "songs"

with words? that you can sing along to? like what?

do all songs have words?

I do actually sing along to "Maybes". Sounds pretty weird but whatever

yeah i mean noone wanted to say "IDM" did they ...

still, a little disappointed we're revisiting this debate in 2010. baja do you only listen to "pure" forms of every genre? or do you only listen to dj mixes of club tracks?

I'm probably not especially qualified to make this assertion, but it does seem that Lamb, as a poppy-ish, more fluffy take of drum n' bass as a post dn'b thins maps on pretty well to the fact that mount kimbie is a poppy, more fluffy take on dubstep, as a post-dubstep thing.

it's the less tracky, song-oriented, wistful defanged indie home-listening version of popular dance music
Can't help but agree with this, though it doesn't impede my enjoying it.

Okay, I haven't actually heard their album yet, so who knows.

i don't see it as reviving any old debate so much as ongoing trolling stretching from crap like "microgoth" and "soft sad techno" all the way to abominations like this thread.

the jr boys had 1 good song, get over it

oh no he dint!

<3

Oh great vahid's "home listening" rant again

xpost to baja

haha ok man if it makes u feel good inside troll up this thread

fwiw i love listening to hardcore dance music at home. i hate the idea that all home music has to be low-key or something

but obviously there are extra-musical concerns playing out here, so, yeah.

would lounge in a chillout room playing maybes

ok, first of all, this isn't about home listening vs hardcore dance. seeing as my all-time favorite label is mo'wax (closely followed by various ambient techno labels from UK / detroit) and i own more than 80% of the catalog, i think that's a bit of a red herring.

really, i'm just opposed to music that suxx.

truth is, these days anybody can slap some heavy grainy washed-out noise effects on a soft-baked, half-assed, underwritten pastiche of actual good music and then call it witch house, chillwave, post-dubstep, what have you. and people will just hoover it up the way they hoover up any sort of design whatever that references midcentury stuff (and i say that as somebody who has books on case study houses) or any sort of clothing whatever that is vaguely associated with heritage or americana.

so yeah, obviously some extra-musical concerns playing out here because i can't fathom how anybody could find anything intra-musical to like about this shit.

what i really want to do is precisely articulate why i think, say, mo'wax and boards of canada are legitimate expressions of this impulse and why

basically it just comes down to invention and novelty, i guess. and when i hear this stuff there's no shock of the new or anything, it's just like "oh, look, someone made a chillwave version of uk garage" and then i just get that same creeping feeling of lameness i get when i read interviews with these guys and they list their influences like "terry riley, grizzly bear, the xx, joker, todd edwards" OMG

that makes more sense. for me, i'd been checking out dubstep etc. for a few years, and i was interested but nothing really caught me, and it's not something i ever hear when out dancing (well, at this point there are a couple dubstep nights around here, but it's something you really have to seek out).

when i heard mount kimbie it was actually a revelation, i realized it was exactly the version of this music i'd been looking for. really musical, incredibly detailed, organic sounds. it's not really a surprise since i've always been a sucker for the artier "home listening" side of dance music, so if that's what offends you on a philosophical level, fine. but the "intra-musical" stuff is precisely what is so strong about this band to me.

so maybe i meant "that makes less sense"

so you like this music better because it's more musical

thanks geir

cause rap is just people talking over other people's beats, right?

the people want ART

ok "musical" is not a very helpful term, but i use it to mean tasteful (in a good way) and good at their craft, good at making everything have an effect, good at making decisions. i think i started saying that because drummers toss that term around to describe other drummers.

now just come on

tasteful?

http://m-a-g.org/mag/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Mount_Kimbie-Crooks_Lovers.jpg

^^ tasteless

you're tasteless

taking ten year old beat styles and make it quiet and fuzzy sounding = good decision! (financially, anyway)

not as tasteless as two white dudes putting a fat black lady in streetwear on their "look at us tweak the conventions of street music" album

http://i.imgur.com/UcH7z.gif

well, thanks for attempting a musical critique of mt kimbie but it's not reverb and wooze at all; it's crisp and detailed sounding. it's mostly cutup samples i think. and im a sucker for that

but i guess i'm being hypocritical because i always shat on 'art rap' in college (atmosphere, def-jux) and preferred mobb deep, three 6, etc.

i will say that i liked the eps better than crooks and lovers. i could see it getting old. that's the problem with these threads - not like i think mt kimbie is going to save music or anything. i just really like their sound design.

i dont know man, i wrote a really mean response but then deleted it; i dont wanna get into that. i think i admitted to being an 'indie dilettante' upthread and if that's what it's all about, fine.

i think BoC is good ref. point -- what do you like about them that you don't find in Mt kimbie? mount kimbie don't have that strong affective undercurrent, i don't think, for one

xpost oh yes let's go there -- people who like mt kimbie ARE RACIST

shocked it took this long tbh

she's black?

(honestly it just makes me happy that this thread is active, even if it's b/c of trolling)

hey baja do you like the actress album? i think i saw you say you thought it was overrated but still dug it a lot right?

I think this argument has crystallised why I don't think much of this album, it's not big or kinetic enough to work on the dancefloor but just isn't interesting enough to work as swoony headphone/bedroom music. It could do with being MORE melodic, if anything.

Honorable exceptions = Carbonated and whatever that Kompaktish one is towards the end.

i loved both actress albums

i agree that carbonated is the best track, but also the one that just sounds like an extra-fizzy, slowed-down version of a todd edwards track circa 2000

hmm i feel like there must be a lot of reverb on something like "before i move off" but maybe they just recorded that guitar in a parking garage or some other suitably desolate, urban, british location

i don't think "before i move off" sounds any crisper or more detailed than, say, a skream track. it's just like year 1 college acoustic guitar lesson behind a super quieted down skream track

btw thank YOU for attempting a musical critique

=D

"quieted down"

I don't see any good reason to put Mt. Kimbie, and the album in particular, at the centre of any post-dubstep vs whatever debate - it's a nice album, and I love a couple of the songs right now, but it's not a defining masterpiece or anything. Albumwise I don't think I've heard anything since Untrue that's worth having fights over.

it's the center of the debate because certain, uh, cultural outlets are acting like it's a defining masterpiece.

well for one BoC took an existing trend and took a deeper look at the roots. oh hey, this new-fangled beat electronica stuff actually has some roots in 70s electronic soundtrack and library stuff, why don't we amp up that element and see what happens. that's relevant. fuck, that's how stuff like UK garage gets invented in the first place, right?

this is just making an existing beat science appropriate for play in starbucks. thanks, but no thanks.

things i like about this song specifically: the rhythm guitar hook, the feeling that every single sound has been labored over, how they mix that huge, conspicuous reverb with the close & dry sounds in a very distinctive way, great cut-up vox.

what's an equivalent skream track i could listen to (seriously)?

xp

umm how about "midnight request line"? also if you want a mix of huge and conspicuous reverb mixed with close & dry you could try "night" by benga & coki, i think both of these tracks might have made a small stir in the dubstep scene but you might have missed them if you were busy listening to, i dunno, deerhunter or something for your reverb fix.

and yeah, sorry to act like the frankfurt school is still relevant or whatever and maybe that's a way more affected position than "i remember listening to bass clef, burial, and loefah a lot at the time, but we had both come from different musical backgrounds, and both loved material like xiu xiu and steve reich" but at the same time ILM is my cultural outlet and frankly i'm tired of this sorry "my personal taste and poptimist outlook trumps any reasoned debate over the dialectics of culture" attitude, come on people, our generation can do a little better than that.

i dont know man, i wrote a really mean response but then deleted it; i dont wanna get into that.

please do!

it's WORTH getting worked up over stuff that's IMPORTANT

i'm interested in the uk dance scene but don't have any stake it, my only exposure is through internet shit. no one i know irl is fluent enough in it to talk about it, much less get worked up. so i understand that defensive/purist attitude (personally i save it for new orleans second line music, which no one really knows or cares enough about to have a decent message board argument), but in this case it's all a bit abstract from my pov.

xp
you're kind of all over the place here though. do you want us to talk about cultural dialectics or just admit the music "suxx"? also, that quote in your xp second paragraph, is that from something or a paraphrase? I haven't read any interviews with Mt Kimbie so I honestly have no idea what their stated influences are.

"midnight request line" is obv way more danceable that mount kimbie, but also way more boring

it's the center of the debate because certain, uh, cultural outlets are acting like it's a defining masterpiece.

Just out of curiosity, who? (I've only heard the album because a couple people I know online raved about it, and I have little sense of its context, both in terms of the scene from which it comes and the way it's been received.)

ok

the vituperation you're responding with seems to suggest something beyond an academic and personal, aesthetic investment in the music -- you're claiming higher moral ground because you dislike a particular record, and you've implied that mt kimbie -- acting as an example of a larger phenomenon -- represent a quasi-imperial, white takeover or re-appropriation of black music. by extension you're implying that you are somehow sticking up for an oppressed minority by dissing mt kimbie on a messageboard. i dont know your background, but that's a bullshit stance, and if nothing else, reveals some weird insecurities on your part, possibly related to the fact that ilm is your cultural outlet, which seems to indicate that you have no friends

I don't think it's just me projecting my insecurities when there's articles out there entitled "mt kimbie takes duubstep over the brostep hump"

oh and I have friends btw

actually I'm quite popular and only hang out with hot chicks so I'm not sweating it ;-)

haaa ok, i can agree with you that that article is execrable. "However, Mount Kimbie's sound is no paint-by-numbers dubstep affair; it's deceptively complex" uhhh ... i guess people do forget that it's really really hard to take just a bassline and a drum track and make it bang. i can see finding their a little cluttered especially compared to leaner step/techno tracks.

but that doesn't mean i can't, or don't, like their music. anyways i feel like im becoming the damn mt kimbie spokesman or something so i gotta sign off of this thread

xp - Ok that headline is nonsense. But I don't think many readers of the article would come away thinking Mount Kimbie are proper dubstep any more than BoC are proper techno.

"proper dubstep" probably should have been in scare quotes there.

James&B: *ahem* I guess the only thing he's got in common with the genre is that he sampled it all over the CMKY EP, Aalyah, Kelis and alsorts feature on there. I've seen him DJ a few times now and fuck me he can play a set. He throws curve balls all over the place but makes them work somehow. I mean every time I've seen him he's played a diffrent Beyonce track mixed with a diffrent Coki track and made it sound not only good but fucking brilliant and a shit load of fun. When you hear his stuff next to Outkast and Zomby it all somehow fits and joins the dots. Its juts a but load of fun. His music hits sposts outside of that context to. He just make massive meladramtic tracks that move floors. Joker moves floors in a more obvious way James Blake twists it up a bit and when you ballance all that energy out just right James Blake's twisted vision is one hell of a dude to have in your record bag. Plus he's got way more than just that going for him, some kind of vocal thing is on the cards no doubt... So you ilixor dudes will be moaning about him again in a few years when p4k review his album in 'THE FUTURE!' ;) I'll chat about Mount Kimbie if this thread lives longer I was to bored by the convo you peeps where taking to bother with that angle.

maybe this is a conversation we need to have: is music that is marketed / promoted under bullshit premises necessarily also created / received under bullshit premises? and does any of that matter?

hey jimi try not posting when high, thx

no and no

xp

Dear moonship you need to hear James Blake mix Coki with Beyonce, cheers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91bqgMkxmv0

Plus same to you too, I mean what goon says 'maybe this is a conversation we need to have: is music that is marketed / promoted under bullshit premises necessarily also created / received under bullshit premises? and does any of that matter?' one smoked up mutha fucker thats who...

"mt kimbie takes dubstep over the brostep hump"

haha, awful title but have to love the phrase 'brostep'. this has infiltrated my current living situation and it makes me want to peel the skin off of my face. the straw-scene is real, people! even in gdamn portland

sorry for the tangent tho, pls keep discussing this awful music and help me understand why i hate it so much

i can't decide where the 1 is on "klavierwerke". you could hear it a couple different ways and it sure doesn't give it away.

my mate was on about his new ep but it's really nowt special is it?

but it's really nowt special is it?

i don't know what this means

but anyway i like the new ep, just not nearly as much as his last two. it feels like he's moving towards this sound for his full-length, super minimal + vocal-focused.

"nowt" = "nothing" if that's the confusion

ah. i'm american btw.

really dig the feist cover

really like this:

http://vimeo.com/15624524

God, that's beautiful.

I like Maybes, but am I alone in finding the Kimbie album rather dull?

no that's pretty much exactly how i feel

maybes is fine for burning one on a sunday afternoon, but that's about the most its style can aspire to and the album proves that.

the more i listen to the album, the better it gets

I had it on in the background when I was doing some other stuff, and it slipped by without leaving a single dent on my memory. Maybe I should make an effort with it, but not sure I can be arsed.

rewards close listening imo

http://soundcloud.com/freedom-or-death/james-blake-measurements/s-Z5cm3

ok, you can't even compare JB to kimbie anymore. game over, kids.

damn

very nice

i don't get it.

Doesn't sound particularly different from the other thing that's been leaked from his vocals album, "Limit to Yr Love". And I still don't love it (though i might come around); there's just something too deliberate and quote-unquote "soulful" to his singing (ie, his "really meaning it" voice is sorta cringeworthy). but i am deeply on board stuff like "I Only Know What I Know Now", find it beautiful and just-slightly (perfectly) new.

i wonder if i'd give these vocal tunes a chance if it was the first i'd heard from him, rather than passing it off as the next young white british soul dude. probably, because the minimalism is so striking.

(but knowing his EPs adds a sense of unpredictability/possibility)

limit to your love has been killing me

like killing me

and yeah jordan otm

I had it on in the background when I was doing some other stuff, and it slipped by without leaving a single dent on my memory. Maybe I should make an effort with it, but not sure I can be arsed.

― A brownish area with points (chap), Tuesday, October 26, 2010 4:03 PM (2 weeks ago)
rewards close listening imo

― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Tuesday, October 26, 2010 4:04 PM (2 weeks ago)

Turns out Jordan was right, I like it now I've played it on headphones a couple of times (we're talking about the Kimbie album).

I know this is totally irrational but I've been hating on the Limit To Your Love cover purely for the way he sings "waterfall". Also the original is incredible and the best Feist song by some distance and James Blake just can't really do it justice.

I really like CMYK EP, just saying.

The Untold remix is what I needed to hear, damn.

i need to not listen to the untold remix for awhile, i'm finding it difficult to not rip it off

also measurements - this is from a forthcoming record or what?

yup

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

so what is the word on the full length anyway, in terms of release date?

I know this is totally irrational but I've been hating on the Limit To Your Love cover purely for the way he sings "waterfall"

that's exactly my problem with it and yes, i also thought i was being irrational but it's a weird stumbling block which stops me enjoying the song.

i have not noticed this

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT~!! that version of 'night air' is not nearly as good as the original!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AqTvu5_plM

pre-sample clearance >>>>

ok sorry that song is crazy awesome tho

fantastic mr fox is very blake-esque, but dancier. really like the 'evelyn' ep:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2bjfV0uKFQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY5L85DQMW8

wonder how long he'll be able to keep using that name.

Very nice.

"measurements" sounds like bon iver

Video for Night Air. I'm probably complete off but I think he looks like Keanu Reeves and his music reminds me of Phil Collins albeit dubstep tinged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL0pTo9Z_XU&feature=player_embedded

You are not alone:

"Mountaintop ballad by someone destined for big things when his album drops next year. Preferable in its rain-splattered early form; once the backing choir turn up it gets a bit dry ice and Phil Collins, but everyone’s partial to a bit of ‘Sussudio’ every now and then."

realisin i only like the MOR end of post ds and not ds itself maybe

"fantastic mr fox is very blake-esque, but dancier. really like the 'evelyn' ep:"

I feel like a lot of "blake-esque" music owes something to Prefuse 73, but maybe I'm misplacing the roots of certain sounds/techniques.

Ya I'm that down with the singing in James Blake tunes.

it's probably right to look at prefuse as a godfather of the whole beat music scene (like the l.a. shit especially), but i don't hear a lot of specifics (as far as the beats and synths go) in common with the current crop.

(personally i kinda gave up on scott herren stuff...it always sounds great in the moment but doesn't stick at all)

or maybe hurting is otm:

http://www.thefader.com/2010/11/03/interview-fantastic-mr-fox/
Was that remix a similar sound to the hip-hop were producing?
The sound palette is the same. I kind of look to hip-hop for the sounds of like, high hats and snares and bass drums. I always try to get the sound like Prefuse 73 and Madlib, I look up to them a lot in terms of drum songs, then it’s transferring those noises to a different BPM. All of a sudden I realized it’s a lot more exciting and a lot more fun to produce at a tempo I wasn’t used to, but using sounds from the genre I was comfortable with. Before the whole dubstep thing blew up, I’d go to club nights and they never played anything I 100% liked, but now that depth and complexity of Prefuse 73 has been transferred to dance music everywhere. It’s a good time.

I guess I was primarily thinking of the whole ultra-cut-up vocal/musical glitch thing.

ive hit the CMYK ep like 3 times today, i dont know why it took so long to click with me.

Fantastic Mr Fox did a great EP last year with an old mate of mine from manchester Rich Reason, soca tinged galloping housey crossover stuff.

but like hasnt the vocal glitch been sortof a thing w/ post dubstep as a whole? im thinking like the four tet album and burial at the very least.

yeah, my sense is that the cut-up vocals are coming from a different source, like uk dance music that i wasn't paying much attention to yet, but that burial really solidified the whole ghostly stitching-together of different r&b acapellas thing.

also, for all the cutting & pasting, i don't feel like "glitchiness" is really an aesthetic goal for this music.

i don't feel like "glitchiness" is really an aesthetic goal for this music.

It is for Mt Kimbie I'd say - that's one of the main things they're bringing to the table.

but like hasnt the vocal glitch been sortof a thing w/ post dubstep as a whole? im thinking like the four tet album and burial at the very least.

― plax (ico), Thursday, December 9, 2010 4:28 PM Bookmark

Yeah, I think it has, just saying that I feel like a lot of that traces back to Prefuse 73.

Was gonna posit the Sunship remix of Sweet Female Attitude's "Flowers", but I guess the current post-dubstep crowd may well have listened to more Prefuse73 than late 90s UK garage classics despite dubstep's garage lineage, so, eh

(obv there are older antecedents, was just thinking in terms of genre boundaries which I guess don't apply any more anyway)

Todd Edwards to some extent exerted influence here.. Maybe...

(in terms of vocal cutup glitch maneuvers) but yeah not sure how much of the post-dubstep landscape acknowledged him as much as older UKG lineage.

as much as the older UKG producers DID, I mean

but like hasnt the vocal glitch been sortof a thing w/ post dubstep as a whole? im thinking like the four tet album and burial at the very least.

― plax (ico), Thursday, December 9, 2010 4:28 PM Bookmark

Yeah, I think it has, just saying that I feel like a lot of that traces back to Prefuse 73.

― mandatorily joined parties (Hurting 2), Thursday, December 9, 2010 6:55 PM (Yesterday)

yeah i dont know why i phrased it like that i def think ur onto something, but yeah also todd edwards.

it's just that "glitch" makes me so strongly of late '90s/early '00s idm, glitch-hop, microhouse, etc.. and digital editing is so non-novel at this point, we're way past using it to sound abrasive or "glitchy". it's a pretty entrenched technique. i guess the term just rubs me the wrong way.

eh, theres signifiers where the origins linger i think. like certain guitar sounds and metal for instance.

sure, but i'd argue that the goal is different (ie less about sounding weird or futuristic, more about making those elements beautiful or banging)

so hes on polydor now? im quite interested to see comes out of that.

So a while back I downloaded the Mt Kimbie album and was pretty eh about it (didn't seem very cohesive) so I didn't really investigate this vein of music much more this year until I finally downloaded the CMYK EP today and man it's pretty good huh? it's too short though.

James Blake album has leaked

God I'm actually really looking forward to a full album!

klavierwerke ep has really grown on me

is this gonna be all new stuff, or things from EPs?

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=13158

"the wilhelm scream" <3

This is totally my jam right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4JPUTgYY-U

yeah, this is nice too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxH5B5DEuWM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3jWbqYByWQ

loving this. that added bitrate really amps up the songs that were already out there in lower-quality versions several notches.

yeah, i've heard that one but it's nice to get the full effect

he's really good at the single-hook song

wilhelm's scream is brilliant

i don't really know much about blake, just started listening to the eps a couple of weeks ago, so sorry if this is a dumb thing to day but the full-length is pretty different, huh? is he doing the singing or is it someone else? i like the vocals, on first listen i wish the songs had a little more going on, especially rhythmically, but they could grow on me

It's him singing.

James Blake album is awful. Played it once and now sending it to the trash. If i wanted some weak ass singer/songwriter shit, i'd listen to...? I have no idea, actually, because I hate shit like this. Just make beats and STFU.

you'd listen to darkstar ?

Darkstar album is 100x better than the James Blake album.

his label is doing a good job scrubbing this from all internet websites

Still available on the first page of a title + 2011 + .rar search though.

yeah i got it

It's a sisyphean task for those guys

Darkstar album is 100x better than the James Blake album.

i haven't heard a note of the james blake album and i can't imagine that this is true.

and, fwiw, i wanted to like the darkstar disc, since i loved their early singles.

I kind of hate the way it sounds like he's whispering things in your ear.

darkstar albim is great, stfu h8ers

album* uggghh late night + alcohol

The Darkstar album is bad. They made the wrong aesthetic choice, abandoning their "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer" sound.

"Just make beats and STFU."

i think hell keep making beats, he just wants to do the singer thing too. even though from listening (only) to limit to your love he does sound a bit limited/like he has a cold/like someone from the 80s.

"wilhelms scream" really is stunning

Is the full-length that commercial? I love the ep's but it's the type of stuff that alienates my friends. "CMYK" is astonishing.

The Darkstar album is bad. They made the wrong aesthetic choice, abandoning their "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer" sound.

^^^^^^^^^ absolutely right.

don't get all the love for 'Aidy's Girl' tbh it's just alright. i do like 'CMYK'.

That shitty Feist cover is seriously Dud.

The Darkstar album is bad. They made the wrong aesthetic choice, abandoning their "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer" sound.

yeah i really hate when artists follow their own muse and do something new, instead of pandering to their most boring fans who'd rather they went in circles and repeated themselves for the next decade

at least at concerts you can shout "AIDY'S!!!" and they'll probably play the hit, though, right?

what are you talking about?

of course they're entitled to follow their muse. they should. that doesn't automatically mean the resulting product is good. fans are entitled to feel that a band made the wrong aesthetic choice. i'm guessing you've made precisely the same assessment over the years, in the case of acts following their muse to places you didn't like going.

sure, but i wouldn't term it a "wrong" aesthetic choice. just a choice that i didn't much care for. it's not an absolute.

okay, sure.

mostly i didn't like being called a boring-fan.

Agree that "Aidy's Girl" is solid but overrated - "Need You" is much better imo.

hah sorry, far from it, i just get bored at work and IM LEARING TO TROLL so -- voila

xp

agree w/ seandalai, "need you" trumps "aidy's" tho obviously both are excellent

need you is a near-perfect track, yeah.

'mo-step

for a while i've been relating (possibly wrongly) James Blake to a two-step Nicolas Jaar for some reason. They seem to work with a similar pallette, ust a different grid.

Oh yeah, the two kinda go together in my head as well. I much prefer Jaar though.

I quite like their Videotape remix. I was kind of hoping the album would be more like that, although I do really like the album.

_The Darkstar album is bad. They made the wrong aesthetic choice, abandoning their "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer" sound._

^^^^^^^^^ absolutely right.

oh shit? i was looking 4ward to this, aidys girl was my jam

so like kimbie r the only
ones who followed up? even theb i could have used more sketch on glass sounding stuff

those eps have longevity tho man

the darkstar album is really good plax, use yr own ears!

I'm glad at least one or two other people hate this James Blake album. It's going to be a long, annoying year for us.

also wrt night air, is that just a standalone thing, or are burial and woon planning more 2gether. i never really cared for wayfaring stranger but im glad others did enuff for this to happen. apart from archangel and raver my favourite burialcuts are collabys

The Darkstar album is bad. They made the wrong aesthetic choice, abandoning their "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer" sound.

yeah i really hate when artists follow their own muse and do something new, instead of pandering to their most boring fans who'd rather they went in circles and repeated themselves for the next decade

at least at concerts you can shout "AIDY'S!!!" and they'll probably play the hit, though, right?

― i genuinely thought when i first joined that he was the admin (ilxor), Thursday, December 23, 2010 8:16 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Like Daniel already said, I just think their new stuff is bad. I don't care that it's different, they just took a gamble and lost, imo. The dude voice's is just not interesting.

And of course calling it the "wrong" aesthetic choice is harsh. That's the point!

I'm glad at least one or two other people hate this James Blake album. It's going to be a long, annoying year for us.

ha. while the record is obv going to get a lot of hype, i was just thinking that it's going to be a long, annoying year for those of us who like him. i'm guessing i'll want to say "but have you heard his EPs?" a lot.

i think his music works best when it's operating as instrumental electronic music, with the vocals treated like samples (even when it's his own voice). once it crosses that line where you have to compare it to other singer-songwriters or whatever, it gets a lot iffier.

anyway, he earned enough of my good will with the EPs that i'll be interested in whatever he comes up with. on the record he still has a really personal production style and his use of space is pretty much unparalleled (although there are parts where it doesn't work as well as on the 'klavierwerke' tracks), but if i had heard the full-length first i probably wouldn't have been sold.

agree 100% ^^

Kind of hoping he really blows up, I've got a first pressing of 'Air & Lack Thereof' in (near) Mint condition. :D

ppl mad overstating the phil collins cxxn w/ the jamie woon track

doesnt james murphy have the market on earning good will on EPs then ruining it with overhyped LPs

how dare james blake how dare he

This sounds okay when I don't have to pay attention to His Indie Voice. The way he boasts of his self-loathing (of course I don't blame his brother and sister for not speaking to Mr Indie Voice) makes me cringe.

so someone decided to make an entire album out of that one bon iver song

but with antonyish vocals

listening to the new album now and it's just really damn boring aside from Limit to Your Love. it's not surprising that the one track with a real melody is a cover. "unparalleled use of space" has flatlined into "where's the music".

Lex is gonna hate me even more for this, but I'm listening to this randomised with the new Nicolas Jaar, and there really ain't a lot of difference in tone, mood, ideas etc. The singing doesn't really bother me, it just sounds like another instrument. I was expecting loads of horrible faux-cockney crooning, but the vocals have mostly been manipulated so they blur in and out with the music.

AntonIver... what a disappointment this record is.

?

Good fucking God, this James Blake album is awful.

I thought you said you liked it John?

Haven't really listened to it properly yet. I want to like it, but then the only tracks I've really enjoyed so far have been L2YL and the CMYK ep.

No, I really, really like the CMYK EP but this is like Jamie Liddell or Fran Healy suddenly deciding to their tribute to 808s and Hearbreak.

But not as charming as that sounds.

It's atrocious.

Annoying thing is, there's the kindling of a great album in there - piano + subdued electronics + vocals that sound like they're sampled from 70 years ago, but the execution is terrible. It's like the Caribou album in that I can't believe he listened to those vocals again and again and decided they would in some way do.

Also, the singer songwriter aspect is being played up a bit, it's mostly the same refrains repeated over and over again.

Yeah, I agree about that. Other than "Limit", it's not indie or singer/songwriter music. Maybe this is a matter of overhyping. Only a couple of months ago this guy was an unheard-of dubstep producer making slightly subdued, sketchy tracks, now he's supposed to be some sensitive saviour of modern pop writing.

(agree on Caribou too - I don't get that album).

there's the kindling of a great album in there

this is otm, there are a few moments on this record where i think 'damn a whole album of this could be my favorite thing in the world' but with the exception of those few bits ('wilhelms scream', 'lindesfarne', the feist cover) he doesn't seem to have enough grasp of melody/harmony to pull off the 'hauntingly beautiful' look that i assume he's going for here. most of the tracks are underdeveloped, and what's there just isn't resonating with me melody-wise even though i really want it to because i love his sound palette and production. it's frustrating.

I tried to listen to this album when I was in the mood for something similar but it failed to capture my attention. It's just not a good effort.

Okay, so I listened to the whole thing on headphones on my way back form work yesterday.

It's not bloody awful. In fact the only thing that offends me about it is the autotune, which sounds like it's been applied as liberally as cover-stick on a Stevenage girl's face of a Friday evening.

So much has been made of Blake's capacity as a singer and "classically trained" songwriter that it's almost eclipsed his production talent, which I really do like. So why, with such mooted talent, has he decided to make himself sound like the fat warbling woman who takes your sandwich order at Greggs? Unlike Kanye, Blake evidently can sing, as evidenced by his deliberately deadpan delivery on "Limit To Your Love".

The use of autotune ruins so many moments, ironically making things sound out of tune, more often than not. Lindisfarne could have been an amazing piece of vocal harmonics, but it sounds like sort of a mess.

But maybe that's the whole point. This is electronica, after all, and maybe Blake is wary of aligning himself with Rufus Wainwright just yet. Had this been released on Warp for example, would this album be viewed differently? Everything Blake has done before has been idiosyncratic to say the least. An artist like this getting this kind of acclaim would have been unimaginable a couple of years ago. Since then we've had The xx, Burial, Darkstar etc, all plowing ahead with ideas of restraint and space, and receiving a fair amount of attention too.

I think the problem with this album is that it has had so many hopes pinned to it in a relatively small amount of time, yet it's very difficult to categorise. It's not really a singer/songwriter album; it's miles away from dubstep in the traditional sense of the word; and the hype factor has boosted it beyond the realms of IDM or experimental electronica. And don't start telling me it's indie,because FFS.

But in other ways, this album almost comes off as a parody of the last coupl of years of music - the autotune, the slight mockney affectations, the UK-singer/songwriter/producerness, the AC-esque vocal clouding, the dubstep influence, the XX-ness of it all... this might well be why ilxors find it so irksome, as opposed to the album sounding awful, because autotuned vocals aside, there are some quite cool bits on it.

Blake evidently can sing, as evidenced by his deliberately deadpan delivery on "Limit To Your Love"

This isn't actually evidence that he can sing, quite the opposite actually.

?

He's using that delivery to mask the lack of any real vocal range or power, is what I'm getting at.

I'd call that singing. It's an idiosyncratic style, and it sounds like he's treated the vocal a little, or slowed it down, but it works for the song. He's been quoted in interviews as saying that he prefers to flatten his vocal when he sings, influenced by certain Sam Cooke songs apparently. He has sung in gospel choirs and things too. So he can sing, but it's like he's got something to hide with the excessive treatment.

Slowest, most defective Procol Harum album ever.

I'd much sooner listen to Kerogen, if I'm going to go for Lover's Dubstep. Lovestep if you will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-Beggc2zE

last year i spent hours digging out a kerogen cd-r that had been sent to me.
all that effort for a 1 track cd-r.
then again, it was a bloody good track (not the one posted ^^ i think).

blubstep

i dunno what you lot are hearing. this album is great. and lovely. listening for the first time now. much better than jamie fucking woon in any case.

That's a relief. I was beginning to think I was the only person here who loves this album.

one of the best albums ive heard in ages. i dont know how its inspired such hate.

(apart from people being sheeplike, obv)

Love the album too, from start to finish.

Agree that Kerogen is better than both Blake and Woon.

yeah love this album a lot

that korgen track is pretty boring, lacks character imo. this stuff jacks burial better imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV9Lrt8ZVaY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS52AKvj8M0

i wish it was a whole album based around the vocoder chorale sound in 'lindesfarne', that's the most magical bit of this for me

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/03/james-blake-album-review
Petridis on the new album. Sounds like he's being a little fair on it.

The Quietus and Fact reviews are pretty damn fair as well: http://thequietus.com/articles/05632-james-blake-review / http://www.factmag.com/2011/02/04/james-blake-james-blake/

I still need to hear it I've been sleeping on it cos I don't dl and couldn't be arsed asking for a promo. Glad there is some sense being talked in amongst the hype he deserves it, he's got some killer music in him.

thought the Petridis review was reasonable overall but he raised my hackles straight out of the blocks with "tiny independents" in the first paragraph - pretty sure R&S isn't run out of someone's bedroom ffs

That Quietus review is pretty much OTM.

fuck fairness this album is abysmal and thoroughly worthless

god i should've pitched to review it somewhere but i couldn't face slogging through it again

TheQuietus are pretty much otm its a bit unfair to call it dance music for bedweters though, its not really got any dance on it as far as I can tell. Couldn't they just call it music for bedweters? lol

eh, well as much as a "what *is* dance music really" conflab would be as boring and pointless as the equivalent 'indie' one that ppl on here seem have been flogging of late, there are plenty of programmed drums and basslines on the album

lots of boring strawmanning here

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.

I like the P4K review - nice antidote to all the haterade itt.

they throw 9's around like candy these days...

Well someone has to.

mark decided before album was heard tho right?

If Blake really does cross over and become the pretty white male who introduces a broader audience to dubstep, with its foundations in Jamaican music and black musicians in South East London, he'll receive the tired, requisite backlash.

pretty sure dubstep has already gone through its "being introduced to a larger audience by white guys" phase

mark decided before album was heard tho right?

yeah when i saw it tweeted i was like "hang on i thought they'd already done that"

mark decided before album was heard tho right?

shhh, he'll chime in here if yr not careful

do ppl really think of dubstep as predominantly 'black' music? i mean i know it's been a while but it kind of started as grime's nerdy white cousin -- plus all the people i know who are into it are white, when i used to go to dubstep nights in bristol there were a lot of pasty white dudes, etc

smh

Yeah, that bit's very odd - it's not like Burial and Skream are underground, and then there's Kode9, Shackleton, Darkstar, Guido, Rusko, Horsepower Productions, Joy Orbison, Mount Kimbie, etc etc. Notwithstanding the dub reggae influence, I've never thought of it as predominately black music. And I can't see the James Blake album introducing anyone to dubstep.

a friend of mine told me the other day he sold one of james blake's first records on ebay for some hilariously large amount of money!

classy use of nerdy and pasty there thomp

One thing I don't get is the rhetoric about this album being some sort of pop move - compared to say Burial or Mount Kimbie it's a challenging listen with only "Limit to your love" as a proper crowd-pleaser. That's why I think the album is interesting, though Blake doesn't have the tunes or presence to pull off the stark minimalist torch song vibe he's aiming for.

pretty sure dubstep has already gone through its "being introduced to a larger audience by white guys" phase

― een, Wednesday, 9 February 2011 14:49 (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

assume he's talking about a different kind of larger audience, ie £50 man types rather than student clubbers, although it's not terribly well explained tbh

though Blake doesn't have the tunes or presence to pull off the stark minimalist torch song vibe he's aiming for.

― Daithi Lacha Flame (seandalai), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 10:23 AM

Definitely agree that Blake's minimalist torch songs fail pretty badly. I'm not sure if "Give Me My Month" and "Why Don't You Call Me?" are products of hubris or just a lack of self-knowledge.

well there is some truth to the fact that an 'urban' scene like dubstep is going to need a nice white figurehead to get it lots of attention from nice people who wouldnt go to fwd or dmz, and blake fills that niche nicely, but then dubstep has been a very mixed scene from day one, and the people you see at dubstep nights are 90% white and its been like that from day one more or less. so its a bit stupid to look at this in racial terms. plus geoff barrows comment about blake taking dubstep coffee table is absolutely stupid considering you could have said the exact same thing about portishead (except about hip hop).

assuming we're talking about the same tweet that's been everywhere else (how I wish we weren't etc) he said "pub singer" not "coffee table"

ah. even more off the mark then.

i. the music on album is gorgeous & really incredible
ii. doesn't sound anything like dubstep to me? up until the point where that (admittedly nagl) bass riff came in on like the fourth song it sounded a lot more like antony & the jonsons over really delicate disembodied drum stuff. last james blake thing i'd heard was bells sketch & this threw me totally off guard

Despite Geoff Barrows great musical contribution with Portishead, I don't take anything that man says in consideration.

I've been listening to this James Blake guy after not knowing he existed for an entire year. I think the album as a concept doesn't achieve what it wants to. I actually found the first song, "Unluck" to be quite unnerving for some odd reason. It was like I didn't know he wanted the song to be a traditional song with a few quirks or it is trying to be like typical abstract electronica.

However songs like "I Never Learnt To Share" did tug at my heart strings. Though the traditionalist in me wanting more lyrics, the fact he just repeated that line got me into it. I'm just struggling with what James Blake is trying to be with this album. However, tying him to dubstep for his debut album is lazy music writing (looking at the Pitchfork media review).

If anything this album is like post-r&b or deconstructionist r&b.

yeah i agree w/ that last part good way of putting it

flopson otm: Antony and the Johnsons is exactly the comparison that came to mind for me...as I said above, I just don't think Blake has the presence or the tunes to pull it off.

The weird thing about the Portishead beef is that the first Portishead album was much more accessible than "James Blake"; you couldn't use most of the tracks here as e.g. TV music without seriously disturbing the viewer.

yeah but afaik all GB said was that his singing sucks

lol grumpy geoff

do i have to fight for "coffee table" NOT being a pejorative here? this is re: portishead - and really it was weird to me that dummy did get used as tv music etc, cuz i thought beth's vocals there were pretty fkn anguished, def enough to "disturb" casual viewers.

"pub singer" isn't quite right, blake's vocals are worthless shit but in a v different way. "bedwetter" about sums it up. i can def see it as incidental music in a "gritty" "raw" bbc drama set in a bedsit or something

I think his singing/tone is fine, just the way he uses his voice can be a little irritating. But Geoff Barrow should not talk, Beth Gibbons on a bad day could get on your nerves as well.

With Portishead I guess there's some sort of circular effect: because they became very popular their music became more acceptable/accessible ("I know that song!"), but I assume their initial popularity must have rested on some amount of accessibility (I wasn't paying much attention at the time). As Lex says, Beth Gibbons' voice is anguished and piercing, though I guess the music is easier to get into (unlike Blake, they had tunes).

Part of me feels like no one's quite figured out James Blake. His popularity is inexplicable. It's as though some a&r guy saw this fella making weird experimental electronica and thought 'well he's tall, young and blue eyed - I can use him as the face of dubstep for radio 2', despite the music itself being quite undercooked and absolutely unmarketable. The fact this trick appears to have worked beggars belief, and i guess this is why no one can quite get their heads round it.

many x-posts

nothing says "jamaican soundclash" like guest vox from dutty projectors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RVKLcaIAE8

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~

completely agree that the hype and marketing is baffling - last year he was one of hundreds of producers (good, bad and mediocre) making music in this field, and i can't figure out what stood out about his productions particularly, or why they caught the major labels' ear - i could reel off 50 other candidates who i both think are superior and who seem, to me, to have far more commercial and/or critical potential. why him? why not - looking at the title of this thread - mt kimbie? (not that i'm into them either but whatever.) why not subeena or girl unit or rustie or faltydl or jam city or ill blu? but then i am pretty much always totally mystified by how major labels work.

it made more sense before the record came out, it just looks weird in retrospect. amazing remixes > great eps that each stick to a concept and give a real sense of progression from one to the next > "oh, he can sing?" = it seemed like he was poised to do something really different (from everyone else in a scene that's already pretty varied) and exciting.

it's too bad about all the hype, 'cause it's just not a record that stands up to it. i guess it was just asking for a backlash.

xp

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

disagree the edits werent good. they were my intro and i kindof shelved them at first but came back after like wouh and time for us and in that context they seemed really good. I think there's a kindof palimpsest notion of *oeuvre* w/ both these guys tho, like ambient *in the context of his previous* house tracks or singersonwriter *ino the context of his previous* post dubstep stuff

which is HALF tim otm

It's doesn't happen every day, of course. But it happens. Limp Bizkit covering George Michael's "Faith" for their breakthrough hit?

woon hasn't had a "hit" really either.

i kind of want to make a list of all the artists in this scene who are RBMA alumni, actually. subeena, goldielocks, braiden, hudson mohawke, katy b, flying lotus...

flying lotus is in this scene?

isnt flying lotus kindof some post dilla thing?

ok, here's the original: http://www.amazon.com/Where-To-Turn/dp/B00169YIZC

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

not really, if the nature of your auteurism is in sound design / sonic experimentalism.

The (charitable) reading of Blake's craft is that he's simply shifted the form of his "deconstruction" of pop material from sampling to cover versions, which themselves verge on "interpolations" anyway.

FlyLo has been adopted by the scene much like James Blake, Mount Kimbie, HudMo, etc... They're people that got a lot of love from within the scene but never really fit in, but they got made to feel at home and find their feet before anyone else really took notice so they often get lumped into dubstep now even when they don't make it or only loosly play with some of its ideas.

that wilhelm's scream orig is cuet

disagree the edits werent good. they were my intro and i kindof shelved them at first but came back after like wouh and time for us and in that context they seemed really good.

Stuff like "Come and Get It" sounds really awesome in the mix if you're not coming at it with expectations of "blow me away with your riddimatic expertise mr jaar".

I think there's a kindof palimpsest notion of *oeuvre* w/ both these guys tho, like ambient *in the context of his previous* house tracks or singersonwriter *ino the context of his previous* post dubstep stuff

This is a better way of putting what I was getting at.

Blakey did some re-recording of vocals/samples in a load of hsi early singles/EPs as well, they aint just samples some of the time. He's always been singing in his work he's just hiden it really well haha. Plus this really vocal side wasn't much of a suprise he's always talked about it and the first mix I ever heard from him back in 2009 started with his cover of Limit to your love. Its the first thing I ever heard from him I think.

i get that, but how does that palimpsest notion come into being? is it the critical narrative overlaid on it or is it in the music somehow? i lean towards the latter with jaar, because when i first heard him he really did feel very sui generis, but none of blake's EPs struck me as being all that separate from the many other EPs from his scene that constantly get released.

xp

seriously? to me the eps sounded both very different from everything else i was hearing and very distinct from each other.

Mixture of both. Artists aren't entirely naive about this kind of thing either, I suspect both Jaar and Blake have had "strategies" of sorts and this feeds through in the music, but then also in press releases, in interviews, etc.

Critics most of the time are suggestible: they will respond to and engage with those sorts of cues and it will shape what they read into the music.

i lean towards the latter with jaar, because when i first heard him he really did feel very sui generis

really? i could get that with the album but none of the previous stuff (as great as it is) couldn't easily be the work of other artists IMO. (haha weirdly inverse xpost reaction with Jordan re Blake)

is it the critical narrative overlaid on it or is it in the music somehow?

more generally it's basically impossible to disentangle these two things, though god knows we all do continue to try.

yeah i will admit that part of what i like abt jaar is how the whole thing hangs together, the link b/w the intimacy of his ambient and the slow human-sounding rhythms of some of his tracks. the feeling of being up-close to another body either dancing or

that interlude in keep me there w/ the just shagged conversation

really? i could get that with the album but none of the previous stuff (as great as it is) couldn't easily be the work of other artists IMO. (haha weirdly inverse xpost reaction with Jordan re Blake)

idk, it's not something specific i can put my finger on, more going by my automatic reactions to hearing blake and jaar last year. when i heard blake's EPs, i kind of nodded and thought "whatever" and filed them away with all the other non-standout electronic EPs i hear over the course of the year, never to really cross my mind again. (tbh i can't really recall a single damn thing about them.) when i first heard jaar i basically went into a bit of a rabbit hole and couldn't listen to anything else for half a week, and had to go and hunt down like everything he'd ever done, and basically got really really excited.

w/ blake i think its suppose to be like he's kindof played w/ all these post dubstep tropes, like pushing at the expanses of space, testing the plasticity until it ends up shaped more like something singersongwritery though still kindof made from all these other things. still yeah this feels like a small album. something that i could imagine being rediscovered as an oddity in a couple decades and really loved by ppl if it gets forgotten about, similar in that way at least to how i feel abt One World maybe but idk how useful that sort of speculation is to anyone

idk, it's not something specific i can put my finger on, more going by my automatic reactions to hearing blake and jaar last year. when i heard blake's EPs, i kind of nodded and thought "whatever" and filed them away with all the other non-standout electronic EPs i hear over the course of the year, never to really cross my mind again. (tbh i can't really recall a single damn thing about them.) when i first heard jaar i basically went into a bit of a rabbit hole and couldn't listen to anything else for half a week, and had to go and hunt down like everything he'd ever done, and basically got really really excited.

I feel pretty similar but I think these are qualitative rather than categorical distinctions.

If anything i'd say that what I like about jaar's work is that it doesn't to me feel sui generis, more like he's picking up on all these familiar threads and saying "there's still something interesting that can be done with these."

I actually like the concept of what Blake is doing now but feel it would be better done using another vocalist - and I suspect that if that had in fact been what he'd done no-one would bat an eyelid at the preponderance of cover versions.

dont go killing/killing the vibe/i cant take your lame style

lol

when i listened to this for the first time a few songs in i wondered if it was him singing but then decided it couldn't possibly be

the link b/w the intimacy of his ambient and the slow human-sounding rhythms of some of his tracks. the feeling of being up-close to another body either dancing or

written abt jaar but otm for jb too

lamp don't be more of an idiot than you absolutely have to be.

better than being simply tiresome

not worried about you thinking i'm tiresome but multiple posts that amount to apocryphal elvis costello quotations would have to be the worst way of making that point.

I learnt the word "palimpsest" par hasard earlier today, and there you all are slinging it around like it ain't no thing.

*humbled*

I hope he fires whomever is handling his U.S. distribution. Stopped in two different stores tonight on other errands and thought I would poke around for this. Neither of these major chains even had him listed in their database, let alone on the shelves - they couldn't even have ordered it! That major label doesn't seem to be helping over here.

Although maybe its only a digital deal in the U.S.?

the database at my store says it's out on CD and LP Feb 15 in the US.

I would say that at a certain point qualitative differences become categorical differences. The joke on Blake's songwriting is that he covers Feist - somebody whose only decent recording was also a cover.

I hope he fires whomever is handling his U.S. distribution

would be surprised if James Blake has the authority to fire a division of his own employers

would be surprised if James Blake has the authority to fire a division of his own employers

Haha, I wasn't being serious, just pointing out that he should be disappointed that the major label isn't giving him a huge push over here. But as one time says, apparently its a week behind over here.

Nice piece, Sean. Do people know this song is a cover? I didn't, anyway

http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/blake_vs_blake.php

Great blog. If James Litherland is his dad, then his dad was in Colosseum. Ace.

yeah, in that interview he said something about growing up hearing the song, because his dad was "producing" it, but that version didn't come out until '06. huh. anyway.

idk dude is my age, '05 still feels like "when i was growing up" a bit

alright now i feel like dude should say fuck it & do a whole covers album

and in both songs he ditches the bridges and any extraneous sections, which were there in the original tunes to, you know, add variety and keep your ear involved. but since he's approaching everything from an electronic or dance music p.o.v., it's the sound and texture that changes, not the chords.

i kinda really like the original song there, it's like jackson browne

i love it but i also really like wihelms scream so

he is tired.
at least
in his voice he sounds tired.
and in my head he goes back and forth b/w both ears
i dont know about my love.
i dont know about my lovin anymore.
each time its like
that little peak in the melody
he needs two attempts to get over it.
singing this song he is worn out
its the last part of his voice that are left
skimmed off the surface of an old song
just to have enough momentum.
dissolving into an acid synth wash
until everything has melted
all i know is i'm turning turning turning

and in both songs he ditches the bridges and any extraneous sections, which were there in the original tunes to, you know, add variety and keep your ear involved. but since he's approaching everything from an electronic or dance music p.o.v., it's the sound and texture that changes, not the chords.

― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Thursday, February 10, 2011 1:04 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

On point, I feel.

it is impossible to listen to this album in the metro

From Twitter:

jetfury Geoff Barrow
fuk me!! make one comment!! just for you record.i wasnt digging at the artist you think.i was digging at some bristol commerial pubstep

pubstep!

slightly sad that no one ever picked up on manara's suggestion that "naughty step" should be a genre

Aw, I thought of "naughtystep" yesterday. I guess there's no such thing as original thought.

although i don't think anyone's come up with "sidestep" yet

"mugstep" - 140bpm version of: pot of coffee on a rainy day house

it was an original thought a few years ago, as was "sidestep", "churchstep" etc. look, we did all the -step puns in like 2007

Imhostep?

GIS comes up with this btw:

http://images2.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/5086427/ITS-OVER-IMHOTEP-IS-FINISHED-IM-IN-UR-VAGINA-BOOTING-UP-UR-TITS.jpg?imageSize=Large&generatorName=Stereotypical-Canadian-Moose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ehllI7Jts

haha (actual lol at 3:20 - 3:40)

For those following this stuff:
James Litherland IS my father, not a man that was produced by my father.

That midi instruments remix is amazing. Several huge laughs from me as well. The part where it goes nuts with a big drum build up is incredible.

Skream and his Skreamix's hay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdPIyXrPtu0

:')

Finally got around to listening to this after one of my workmates recommended it to me. Maybe because it's a dull, wet Sunday afternoon but this is hitting the spot. The one album it's reminding me of is John Martyn's 'Solid Air' who had a similarly gauzy voice. He isn't anywhere near as good as Martyn, but sonically it's on the same plane.

I like this album now! Have acclimatised to the scrapey vocals. "The Wilhelm Scream" converted me first, then went back to the rest. Still not so sold on the last two or three tracks, but that could be just scrapey-vocal fatigue kicking in.

i like joe keyes' blurb on this disc, posted today on the emusic blog

In the midst of a whole lot of madness last week, the James Blake record arrived on eMusic U.S. From what I understand, it’s pretty divisive! Some people really like it, some people think it’s watering down dubstep. These are real controversies! Amazing! We live in thrilling times. You can be the judge yourself. And while you’re at it, download his cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” Which, come to think of it, is probably not going to do a whole lot to defend him from his accusers.

it's true: we live in thrilling times.

no one thinks it's watering down dubstep

holy shit on that screamix remix. the seinfeld bass was serious lols. not a dis, but it sounds like something milton or dominique leone would make.

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/792/tumblrlfzz9gdsqi1qdawze.gif

this album has been lovely background music.

the sleeper cut is "i mind" (would have fit in perfectly on klavierwerke)

kinda love i never learnt to share and will be playing it around my sister a lot

Weird thing about Never Learnt to Share - he's an only child.

So we're liking this now? God my head!!

Only just discovering the Mt Kimbie album. Lovely, especially Before I Move Off, Carbonated and Field, though (apart from a couple of bassier tracks) definitely closer to Four Tet and Gold Panda than dubstep - basically the 2010s incarnation of IDM and trip hop. Which is fine by me. Blake still stands alone, for better or worse.

Okay, I've just realised how fantastic Wilhelm's Scream is - the build up and the chord progressions and the use of sidechaining transcend most of what's going on in this album.

Listened to this album again last night after a horrible day at work. It really calmed me down despite how unstructured it is (maybe I'm a rockist after all). The album is like incomplete thoughts floating in your head which is a new listening experience for me.

Plus, I listened to "Love What Happened Here" and I wonder why he couldn't be this remotely funky on his debut. I don't know if he is pandering to me or what but I nodded my head to it.

sounds like a cmyk outtake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vwOxF4NtdU

wilhelms scream is wonderful.

What an odd comment to make
http://pitchfork.com/news/41740-echo-chamber-james-blake-vs-remixes/

I can understand that maybe the commissioning of remixes can feel like hustling when you're a hot producer who's suddenly flooded with requests to remix songs, but the rest of that quote is a bit odd yes (maybe because it's taken out of context. That SPIN blurb it's taken from just seems like a collection of quotes instead of a (mini)interview).

yeah, it's understandable, but kinda shitty to say since he first started making a name off off remixes (untold, the harmonimix stuff). i'd imagine he'd say that he did those because the tunes spoke to him and not because he was trying to latch on to someone else's success, but still.

I did the Spin interview - those were the choice quotes taken from it because Spin wanted a variety of formats in its new artist feature. I'm sorry it's unclear - it didn't seem that way to me when he said it or when I wrote it up. He was just saying that he hated being asked to remix big acts he had no connection with just because he was the latest hot producer, and he thinks it makes the other artists look bad too. The remix industry now is very much about throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks - there are major label singles with six or more remixes. That's very different to doing a favour for Untold, who put out his first single.

That's what I thought that was meant but wasn't sure - thanks for clearing that up!

The remix industry now is very much about throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks - there are major label singles with six or more remixes.

not that I don't think it's dumb but that's hardly a new thing, if anything it's some choice !!!90S REVIVALISM!!!

"Remixing is like musical prostitution. I think it's really cynical and vacuous; I'm batting offers away like flies. It never used to be like that. Ray Charles didn't need five remixes. The song speaks for itself."

they're sitting out there waiting to give you their money. are you gonna take it? are you man enough to take it?

xpost True - I remember the 90s remix glut too but Blake's only 22 so it's new to him.

"Remixing is like musical prostitution. I think it's really cynical and vacuous; I'm batting offers away like flies. It never used to be like that. Ray Charles didn't need five remixes. The song speaks for itself."

^^^ Doesn't fucking get dance music.

Would totally be down for hearing a Ray Charles remix in the middle of a house set.

afaik Ray Charles didn't do a bunch of pop remixes under an alias either

Really? If that's true he's such a pompous arse.

Rather than being a contradiction, doesn't the distinction between remixing as an artform and remixing as a cynical marketing tool make sense? Now I'm worried I might have misrepresented him in the edit. Full quote was this:

I’m batting remix offers away like flies. I really dislike the remix industry. I think it’s really cynical and vacuous. You get five different remixes of someone’s first single in five different genres. It’s not right and it never used to be like that. Ray Charles didn't need five remixes. The song speaks for itself. It’s a horrible way of treating people and I won’t be treated like that. I haven’t done a commissioned remix so I don’t know what to charge. It’s like musical prostitution – lending your sound to someone else’s track. It’s just a load of indie bands who want some sort of validity.

Still doesn't get it.

xp I assume mh means the Harmonimix white label thingies he did, not official remixes

What's to get, Matt? I don't follow you. But I think your point that he doesn't get dance music - if by that you mean the specific culture and industry - then you're probably right.

Yeah, I didn't mean official commercial remixes.

Exactly, he doesn't get dance music, he doesn't get the idea of plurality and cross-pollination that you get through remixes, he doesn't get how incredible it can be to be on a dancefloor and hear a record you love reappear in an unfamiliar context. The idea that it's in some way killing the purity of the song or is a "horrible thing to do to a person" is just bizarre to me.

The remix industry now is probably an issue of bet-hedging as much as anything else, but it still provides an income for a lot of producers that would be non-existant otherwise. It feels like Blake is just pontificating from a position of privelege.

Haha "bass-heavy, reggae-informed techno" is such a wrongheaded way to describe dubstep as well so well done SPIN for making that happen.

It’s not right and it never used to be like that. Ray Charles didn't need five remixes.

oh fuck off with your sandi thom-esque "it were all fields round here" bs - not to mention it's always been like this, for as long as i can remember! and maybe ray charles didn't have five remixes at the time, but given how many excellent producers rework vintage songs to superb effect - henrik schwarz on bill withers' "who is he?", say - dismissing the potential of remixes comes off as really shallow rockism.

Exactly, he doesn't get dance music, he doesn't get the idea of plurality and cross-pollination that you get through remixes, he doesn't get how incredible it can be to be on a dancefloor and hear a record you love reappear in an unfamiliar context. The idea that it's in some way killing the purity of the song or is a "horrible thing to do to a person" is just bizarre to me.

The remix industry now is probably an issue of bet-hedging as much as anything else, but it still provides an income for a lot of producers that would be non-existant otherwise. It feels like Blake is just pontificating from a position of privelege.

matt dc otmfm

Also how many other artists' work did Ray Charles reinterpret? How many other jazz or rock or soul artists reinterpreted his songs? It feels historically ignorant more than anything else.

Oh bollocks, I cocked up that pasted quote. The "horrible" bit shouldn't be in there - that was from a different question where we were talking about the practice of labels overcommissioning remixes and refusing to pay for them, knowing that a lot of remixers would leak them online anyway because they were proud of them, thus giving the label free publicity. Aeroplane complained about this too - apparently it's common practice. And I agree that is a pretty lousy way to treat people.

He isn't criticising remixing per se, but the remix industry.

My new user name will be Cap'n save-a-Blake

that makes a lot more sense

xpost True - I remember the 90s remix glut too but Blake's only 22 so it's new to him.

― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:58 PM (2 hours ago)

im 23 and i totally remember this. being all like uh why is there three remixes on the cd single of bitch by meredith brooks (this is a true thing its terrible that i know this)

We've done so much great work pillorying him based on the strawman misquote, DL! Stop trying to fix this.

it does seem like the main point of remix albums these days is to have another excuse to send out press releases/get google hits/etc.

I think I get the idea of having what's basically a second version of the album with a different remixer on each song, but I don't think it really works so well. I'd rather hear two or three remixes of the most remixable songs rather than a few gems and a couple of reinterpretations.

heh i get that remixes have a certain bloggability esp when they seem to promise a certain alchemy of crosspollination b/w two seemingly incongruent aesthetics but i kindof feel like that narrative is so burnt out by early bloghouse etc that its kindof not worth talking about anymore

remixes help expand listenership and make for easy press; they're generally cheap to produce and fast to make
when your marketing budget is a shoestring, remixes make good pr sense

Maybe JB's problem isn't the remix itself but the "on spec" mechanism with which most bands/management teams solicit that stuff
i.e. do the work, the remix belongs to you, maybe we'll pay you
Which is fine for some but worthy of criticism

Owen, what's your take on remixes of your work? Do you ever regret handing over the keys to the car? Does it seem to pay dividends in any way, short term or long?

owen otm

I think he just doesn't like to spam out loads of random remixes himself. He only really does them when he's really feeling something. I bet he gets asked to do loads and isn't into doing a bag of them for the sake of it. Same prob goes for other people remixing him.

I'm loathe to defend blake but I definitely think in the last five years or so it feels like the majority of great remixes, edits, what have you, have been productions driven by the remixing artist - e.g. Schwarz doing Bill Withers, yeah, but more generally really deliberate match-ups between dance artists of similar sensibilities on, say, two track vinyl releases - as opposed to the tradition of labels commissioning a bunch of remixers.

Seems to me like the last great mainstream remixers was JLC. The early-to-mid-00s was an awesome time for that in general.

Dubstep/post-dubstep have never really had a proper remix culture either, some unofficial remixes yeah (was it Goth-Trad who did that ace Erykah Badu remix?) but I can't even think of any examples of, say, Hessle Audio putting out a remix (though there may be). So it's kind of gone straight from no remixes to people like Joker, Skream, Rustie, Blake etc being asked to do remixes for major label releases... There's a lot of these at the moment, and the only one that seems to have taken on a life of its own in any big way is the Le Roux remix (ew).

The two sides sort of come together in the sense that electro-house was a great form for teasing out an original song's qualities (very extended mix-y) whereas it's very hard to do a remix in a dubstep or post-dubstep style that doesn't sound just like that. Nothing wrong with that but I could imagine the process becoming frustrating - ironically, given Blake's current style this probably wouldn't apply to him! The complaint seems odd coming from in particular.

uk funky is pretty good at the "commissioning multiple remixes" thing (see e.g. Addictive's "Domino Effect") but, of course, not if you're talking dollars. But again funky is a form fairly sympathetic to songfulness.

Dubstep/post-dubstep have never really had a proper remix culture either

idk i'd disagree with this - can think of a ton of great remixes by ikonika (who's managed to successfully carve out a remixing style that's quite distinct from her own material, pretty varied from track to track, but still recognisably her), and reworking mainstream hits is a huge thing (think brenmar, kingdom, the cassie remix compilation etc).

and in terms of label-commissioned remixes, uk funky producers from crazy cousinz and geeneus through to ill blu and funkystepz have done amazing stuff in that format.

I don't think there has been as big a remix thing as there has been in say electro in... dubstep/post-dubstep... until recently at least. There have been a good amount of remixes but even last year I was finding it hard to pick up on that many that really stood out or had been done. Its just not much of a thing for now. A load of labels/artists will keep doing that no doubt others will push it as far as it'll go cos its good promo and kind of fun to get others involved on your releases. I doubt James Blake will be making remix fodder anytime soon. But you'll sure hear a million Skream remixes, maybe Joker if he goes for it this year... or even a load of the night slugs peeps doing epic amounts. Its just the way they roll. Sometimes it makes for good listening a lot of the time its doesn't its just quality control innit. There is a fine line between blog fodder and good promo though... I just hope post-dubstep peeps walk it fine as they get more hype.

Lex my post was specifically distinguishing between unofficial and official remixes. Kingdom et al specialize in the former really.

Plus yeah I'd already agreed re funky.

u 2

Peak-era electrohouse still feels like the greatest ever period for the pop or indie remix.

Whereas the most annoying thing about dubstep at the moment are the endless dubsteppisations of popular tunes. It's getting like the late-90s when there had to be a ska-punk version of absolutely any hit song ever recorded.

The blaring dubstep Laura Marling remix I heard the other day was so ridiculous as to be beyond the point of self-parody.

Every so often someone posts one of these things up on Facebook and it's kinda LOL the first time until you realise all these remixes are exactly the same. I guess that's just what's always happened in dance music.

xpost there is not a Laura Marling dubstep remix, surely? How severe.

There is a dubstep remix of everything if you just type it into youtube with the word dubstep at the end. There is a whole shitty lolyoutubedubstepremixlol culture on there and its horrible. I like to think its a seperate thing to the rest of the scene since you never hear it in clubs or outside of either youtube or people making fun of it on forums haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTIKbUXV7RU

Oh my...

There is a whole shitty lolyoutubedubstepremixlol culture on there and its horrible

I had noticed this but I hadn't realised the extent and horror of it. "Dubstep Snowman" made me want to avoid Youtube for the rest of my life.

DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU WANT TO WITNESS THE NADIR OF WESTERN CULTURE

oh god. i can't listen to that at work and i'm kinda glad.

http://mostlyjunkfood.com/treats/2010/12/home-alone.png

That. Is. Horrific.

I only noticed this 'phenomenon' today and now it's seemingly everywhere and I already want it to stop.

You know what the funniest thing about lolyoutubedubsteplol is though...

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

That kind of thing happens.

Does it seem to pay dividends in any way, short term or long?

I don't know about dividends.
Remixes are a nice way to celebrate a single or album's release by giving some money to a friend/musician you think is really talented
At least, that's my take on it, the way I play it
If I were James Blake and got a remix request, I'd check my schedule and ask for at least 2K

if i may interrupt the ridiculous daily mail style 'oh im just so outraged!' outburts, yeah blake sounds like a rockist with his 'ray charles didnt need remixes' attitude, but erm, this is a guy whos done quite a lot of remixing of pop hits he likes for his own bootlegs, so hes hardly someone who believes in the definitive purity of the original. and hes right, most remixes these days you get from dubstep/whatever producers/remixers on major labels are pointless or just a really bad fit. nothing new of course, but nothing that good either. you just get the song retooled tick-box-style for diff genres.

dubstep is a bit more about the definitive original than most dance genres i would say, they are pretty strict about just getting anyone to put out remixes of their stuff (its more about stuff like kode 9 remixing skeng where its remixes by someone close who understands the music, and as an aside, thats a remix which blake has played in sets), but even taking into account blakes part of/not part of membership of the scene, theres been great stuff like coki's richie spice remix so i doubt hes that divorced from dance culture, sorry guys. he doesnt like remixing for remixing sake but i doubt he hears a great remix and immediately thinks 'sacrilege!'

*outbursts

otm titch.

I've heard Blake DJ a few times and he defo loves and plays remixes haha He may have even played that Coki remix you mention, he loves a bit of Coki.

He's just not into remixes for the sake of remixes, I mean is anyone apart from wanky labels trying to squeeze every inch of life out of something until it breaks? Oh and blogs...

I think the main problem, and Blake might be referring to this, is that things like online remix competitions are becoming huge promotional bandwagons for labels. hundreds of demos will be submitted with one winner gets chosen while the track receives loads of hype and attention. Record labels win, nearly everyone else loses while a glut of terrible tracks flood the internet.

maybe. but really he just doesnt see the point in remixes for remixes sake. i mean, really, is that THAT controversial or damning? seems like hes just stating the obvious. i mean, i actually prefer a lot of ukg remixes of R&B songs from that period to the originals, but a lot of the best ones were just bootlegs made by the producers off their own backs (iirc), something i think still holds true for funky or dubstep or grime (maybe house and techno too , i dont know). maybe some (insert genre) djs like having shit (insert genre) remixes of a shit chart tune just to please the punters in some town centre pub late on a sat night and i can def see the purpose there - you want stuff thats going to work in your selection - but its hardly great stuff and its what leads to things like amy winehouse getting dubstep remixes! someone like blake who has a bit of integrity (yes rofl etc etc) is obv only going to be in favour of remixes that are more than just dj-set/cd single filler (fwiw im not a fan of many of his remixes - the lil wayne one removed everything that made the original so good.

(response to dog latin - jimi otm)

the ~remixes 4 cash~ structure can still provide great stuff though - ill blu, funkystepz and crazy cousinz prove it more than any dubstep producer though - and obv even ~labour of love~ remixes can be shit. and that's always been the case, how many classic house remixes were done for £££ or at a label's behest? it doesn't really make sense to slag off anything so sweepingly. obviously tons of shit, uninspired remixes do the rounds, as ever, but imo they're relatively harmless - it's rare that the really rote stuff gets a great deal of airplay or attention, and if it earns some producers money that they may not necessarily get off their own tunes, that's not a bad thing.

Y'see, I actually like artists to have strong opinions about stuff. I enjoy a bit of purist dogma every now and then.

yeah, its much better than artists being so fucking reasonable all the time, agreed. just cos someones a 'dance' producer doesnt mean he cant be a raving rockist. but fair point, lex. the dj q remix of dizzees flex was fabulous and no doubt just a case of XL trying to get some bassline action.

Cynical commissioning can produce some great remixes if the combination is right but I can see why someone would think, fuck this. I bet some of the artists who have approached Blake would make Lex's hair curl.

aww yeahh i'd forgotten that remix! so good.

pretty sure carl craig remixing siobhan donaghy and armand van helden on sneaker pimps/tori amos back in the day were label-driven too - and i've interviewed several producers who are known for their remix work (henrik schwarz and tensnake spring to mind) and they've just shrugged their shoulders and gone "i just remix whoever rings up and offers to pay".

xp

i guess some remixers prefer to see cynical remixes-4-cash of horrific artists as a challenge? that, or just grit your teeth and work out how much you need the money - i don't have a fit of the vapours when i need to do some corporate copy to pay the bills innit.

blake will give in soon enough i reckon. its ok for him right now cos his name is riding high (even if his bank balance isnt) but in a while, once its no longer important for him to establish his cred, hell prob think 'oh fuck it' and remix some bullshit fearne cotton favourites. i dont really see it as being THAT sinful. i remember reading some factmag review of jokers tron, saying that joker wasnt that special anymore as his recent remixes were a bit shit, but i mean, you sort of expect them to be dont you?! you cant hold a producer known for his own work to the standard of his jobsworth remixes! (obv when i was in my teens and buying anything dj premier remixed i wd have disagreed but those days have long gone thank god)

I know the old idea of the "sell out" is dead but t's getting pretty fucked up when a musician is actually being attacked for declining to do hack work for cash. No disrespect to those who do that work, and who make a great job out of it, but come on.

well music fans are boring realists these days.

a musician is actually being attacked for declining to do hack work for cash

i'm not attacking him for this! if he doesn't need the £££ and doesn't want to do the work, more power to him. i'm criticising him for dismissing the whole exercise like he did, w/o acknowledging that a) great music can result from the process, b) even if it doesn't, other producers might not be as lucky he obviously is financially.

http://991.com/newgallery/Aphex-Twin-26-Mixes-For-Cash-234844.jpg

James Blake made 2 good EP's and one incredibly shit album. This guy will be remixing for cash in less than 3 years, right after his 2nd album flops.

has a hyped artist ever been as dreary as this? watching him "perform" on the culture show just now was like having the life slowly leached out of you over the course of five minutes.

still love this album, but i lolled at too much time on ilx moment

...ubiquitous pop critic Christopher R. Weingarten tweeted: “LOST: JAMES BLAKE’S BALLS. CANNOT OFFER CASH REWARD BUT CAN OFFER CRED POINTS.”

http://newyork.timeout.com/music-nightlife/music/984127/james-blake#ixzz1GEN10egg

ugh websites that autoplay full screen adverts are the worst. why why why was that permitted to happen.

I think there should be a slightly higher standard for describing a backlash than two jokey tweets. It's not even clear that Geoff Barrow meant Blake (the tweet seems to fit but he denies it). Not to say that there isn't a backlash but I don't like this new journalistic habit of quoting tweets as if they carry significant weight.

i've always disliked the term "backlash" anyway - in most cases it's, like, some critics like a thing, and others dislike it - this happens all the time and is not notable. and obviously those who like it got to hype it first! a true "backlash" should be when the same people who previously praised an artist turn against him/her.

and if the people crying "backlash" had actually paid attention they'd have known that there were people saying blake wasn't all that, like, 6 months ago. and the kanye album didn't have a "backlash" either, the same people who disliked it had done so from the off.

OTM. It's a lazy, annoying, usually meaningless angle.

gotta find a hook to hang eight paragraphs on, backlash is an easy one xp

It's not even clear that Geoff Barrow meant Blake (the tweet seems to fit but he denies it)

does he also deny declaring Florence Welch a deluded Russian backing singer given 5 minutes to impress the boss of a strip club in Odessa?

I think backlashes do exist w stuff like this precisely because it's often a bunch of people that liked it that end up not liking it. Reason being stuff has a rapid buzz about it which kinda makes people have an opinion *early*, before they might do otherwise. Of even where they wouldn't necessarily have one at all. Easy to end up w an opinion that isn't really the opinion you would have had if just happening across it without the buzz behind it.

Is sorta one of the reasons I don't really feel any need to hear things everyone is talking about (unless specific reccomendation)

It's true but it's a depressingly circular way of discussing music. After a couple of good pieces about blog hype - Jess Harvell's Black Kids article springs to mind - I don't want to constantly read pieces on new artists that are framed in terms of buzz and hype and backlash and what Whiney said in a tweet.

Me either, so I don't!

Good policy.

Backlash works in this context because what Blake's doing this year is totally different to what he was doing last year, and yeah what Cherry Blossom said about getting in early. What Whiney said in a tweet isn't remotely significant to anyone outside a few blogs and ILM though.

In a way I kind of think of music that is buzzed or everyone suddenly talking about it - is a bit like having the radio on at work. Except instead of the music itself being broadcast right at you its other people's opinions

I think you might be on the wrong website.

Its certainly possible

I would have thought "backlash" remains a useful concept when critics focus their negative reaction on puncturing the buzz - Kanye and Blake both are good examples of this. It's not that nobody would have disliked the music originally, it's that the expression of dislike becomes about removing the scales from people's eyes.

this mix is my shit: http://electronicexplorations.org/the-show/141-airhead/

after leaving this alone for a bit (and listening to that case of you cover which is absolutely dreadful on every level - jesus, how did he think that was a good idea, people who can not sing should not be doing joni mitchell covers) i think hes prob better off never singing again, unless its just repeated refrains that are heavily treated. anything more than that and he starts to fall apart. plus after more thanm about 20 mins of him singing, you start to hate him, and want to slap him for being so wet. a lot of his ep material is overrated anyway - all awkward, jerky shit for no reason. hes had that prob since day one - for every air and lack thereof, you get something like the b-side, where he doesnt seem to know quite how to finish or complete a track so feels he has to fuck it up unnecessarily.

the thing with this album is, like Gonzales' Solo Piano, I'm very happy to listen when it's around and i totally forget it existing when it's not
not to say it's not catchy or stuck in my head, just that it doesn't linger or leave a crater behind
so whether or not you dig this may be a barometer of how music that fits that general description fits your tastes

And it was written:

Long before he became poster-boy for indie’s momentary fascination with the soulful sounds of UK’s bass underground, Londoner James Blake could already bust a groove.

404'd
momentary fascination
hah.

so this new single streaming at pfork ... he's just seeing what he can get away with now, right? like, this isn't actually a serious stab at making listenable music ... right?