ALWAYS EVERYTHING

JAMES BLAKE // KLAVIERWERKE

And we return after a week or so’s hiatus, with a new burst of content up and coming over the next few days. First up is praise for more fucked-up beats from the man of the moment…

While it’s probably getting a little tiresome reading the same unanimous praise from every corner of the music press at the moment, sometimes it’s fun to go with the flow. It wouldn’t be exaggerating in the slightest to say that AE’s had James Blake’s Klavierwerke EP on constant repeat for the last couple of months – but it’s certainly fair to say we’ve in no way exhausted its considerable riches yet. For a producer whose releases so far could be counted on one hand – and who only emerged just over a year ago – his influence on the foggy world surrounding dubstep has been disproportionate, and electrifying. Aside from conclusively proving music as warped and bizarre as ‘Air & Lack Thereof’, or his remix of Untold’s ‘Stop What You’re Doing’, could still send crowds into spasmodic overdrive, he’s successfully managed what so few do: detaching bass music from the limits imposed by the dancefloor without descending into a mire of post-post-everything noodling.

And somehow, through some impossible sampling alchemy, he’s retained every ounce of soul his source material contained. Blake’s music is so impressive – and so affecting – because it subverts the normal notion of what ‘pop’ music needs to be to have an emotional impact. Taking modern R’n’B as a starting point on the CMYK EP, he drags it from its original context and sends it spinning into a different orbit entirely, yet keeps its essence intact. The same is true of Klavierwerke, except the source is different: his own voice and piano, set adrift in an indistinct sea of thoughts and scraps of memory that break the surface for split seconds before evaporating. That’s probably the reason why it feels so much more real, so much more tangible, when placed alongside his older material – he maintains a direct physical connection to the wordless voice that snags in the clipped two-step of the title track, or the piano that drifts up through ‘Tell Her Safe’. As a result, despite being cloaked in ambiguity it’s an intrinsically personal listen - the cover art couldn’t be more appropriate.

But even as Blake’s own self continues to emerge from behind the shield he’s created, there remains the nagging sense that an awful lot is still being held back just out of sight. It’s partially those unresolved questions that make his music so compulsive to return to, but also his wonderfully self-assured habit of never repeating the same trick twice. You never know quite what you’re going to get with a new James Blake release, and it’s a pleasure to keep following him down the rabbit hole.

Rory