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Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Tep And The Logic | |||
| 2. Unluck | |||
| 3. The Wilhelm Scream | |||
| 4. I Never Learnt To Share | |||
| 5. Lindisfarne I | |||
| 6. Lindisfarne II | |||
| 7. Limit To Your Love | |||
| 8. Give Me My Month | |||
| 9. To Care (Like You) | |||
| 10. Why Don't You Call Me | |||
See all 13 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Once We All Agree | |||
| 2. We Might Feel Unsound | |||
| 3. Fall Creek Boys Choir (featuring Bon Iver) | |||
| 4. A Case Of You | |||
| 5. Not Long Now | |||
| 6. Enough Thunder | |||
Product Description
Review
Since James Blake’s breakout remix of Untold’s Stop What You’re Doing in late 2009 – which saw him twist up the original with beats taken beyond the pale – he’s pushed his artistic limits beyond recognition. A blinding 12-month period saw him birth three groundbreaking EPs (The Bells Sketch, CMYK and Klavierwerke), drawing on electronic music, UK bass, commercial RnB, gospel and ambient. And then there was his stunning cover of Feist’s Limit to Your Love, by all standards his most accessible song to date – if you take its rib-crushing sub-bass away from the delicate piano-and-vocal foray at the helm.
On his long-awaited debut album, Blake moves his informed, excited mastery into yet another sphere; instead of manipulating tension through a library of beats, he now mostly draws on silence and vocal treatment. Take The Wilhelm Scream, where Blake’s jittery, double-tracked vocals are forever trying to catch up with the beat. The gaps make the song’s climax all the more of a spectacle.
Not all of this album’s silences, however, are build-ups to breakdowns. The tension of Unluck’s initial yearning and snappy beats become buried low down in the mix by the end, instead of crashing and burning. I Never Learnt to Share is similar, becoming more dissonant and riled as it unfolds before bursting and then coming up again, struggling for air. To Care (Like You) follows a similar non-format, starting with an untreated vocal before morphing into something equally bleak but entirely robotic, stone-cold. There’s no time for luring the listener in to a false sense of comfort, except on the gospel-influenced Measurements, the most familiar-sounding song here.
This 22-year-old Londoner certainly isn’t shy of ambition, and but that’s not to say this album is without its failings; Lindesfarne I and II, a universe away from the swagger and uppers of CMYK’s top line and sub-bass, are a step behind. The compressed silences and formlessly spacious sounds are overwhelming through headphones for baser reasons. Give Me My Month similarly adds little, working only as an interlude.
Aside from the hype, this album is by no means a feasible breakthrough into the mainstream – there’s not stride enough for that. But when it’s at its best, it’s boundary-breaking – and Blake is indeed a rare specimen, with many faces, each obscured. Each playback draws the listener in closer towards to the record’s core, like a dimmer switch being raised incrementally – a true beauty to behold.
--Natalie Shaw
Find more music at the BBCProduct Description
(2CD) 2011 reissue of his debut album repackaged with the 'Enough Thunder' EP.Six bonus tracks including 'Fall Creek Boys Choir' with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon + a cover of the Joni Mitchell track 'A Case Of You' & 4 new tracks!
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I just adore this album. I know for some people the sparseness is off putting but that sense of bleakness and nude emotion just blew me away. I love all genres of music but there's something about the cool detachment of electronica juxtaposed with Blake's beautiful vocals that, for me, is transcendent.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I must say, I heard James playing live on Dermot O Leary and being heavily pushed by Jo Whiley and I really liked his stripped down sound. However this album is terrible. Its a one trick pony and the songs all sound far "too samey" for my liking. I would strongly suggest you carefully listen to this before buying rather than judging it as I did on the Radio live sessions which were excellent. Sorry James, its a miss this time around.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I bought this after seeing James Blake at Green Man in the summer - an amazing act! Great CD, arrived promptly in the post.
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