![]() ![]() Later on, he attended Goldsmiths, University of London, where he received a degree in Popular Music. He received classical training in piano as a child, and completed primary education at Grange Park Primary School, Winchmore Hill and secondary education at The Latymer School, Edmonton. James Blake is the son of musician James Litherland, and showed a strong interest and aptitude in music from a young age. He has won a Mercury Prize from two nominations, a Grammy Award from five nominations, including for Best New Artist in 2014 and three Brit Award nominations. In 2016, he released his third album The Colour in Anything and his fourth album Assume Form in 2019, both receiving positive reviews and the latter becoming his highest-peaking album in the US Billboard 200, at number 21.ĭuring his career, he has collaborated with artists including Mount Kimbie and Bon Iver and has contributed production work to artists including Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Vince Staples, Frank Ocean, and Travis Scott. His second album Overgrown was released in 2013, bringing him to international attention, and later was awarded the Mercury Prize. ![]() He first received recognition for a series of 2010 EPs including CMYK and Klavierwerke, and he released his self-titled debut album in 2011 to critical praise. Album DescriptionJames Blake Litherland (born 26 September 1988) is an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer from London. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. Compared to the self-titled debut and Overgrown, this a more graceful and denser purging, one that can soundtrack some intense wallowing or, at a low volume, throb and murmur unobtrusively in the background. Blake sought some help, not only from Rubin, who co-produced the Malibu sessions, but from Justin Vernon, who assisted with two songs and is heard on "I Need a Forest Fire," while Frank Ocean co-wrote another pair, including the all-voice closer, where Blake solemnly resolves - ta-da - that contentment is up to him. Most disorienting is "Put That Away and Talk to Me," akin to a malfunctioning lullaby mobile playing a late-'90s Timbaland knockoff. A few lines are expressed with Auto-Tune fillips, some are enhanced through fine layering, and others are left unembellished, sometimes sunk into the mix of basslines that tap and thrum, percussion that gently skitters and scrapes, and synthesizers, applied like coating, that swell and swarm. As he sifts through the wreckage in puzzled and lucid states, he still stretches and distorts his frail but transfixing choir boy voice. Regardless of location, Blake continues to deal in fraught romantic trauma, setting the album's tone immediately with "Radio Silence," a mix of mournful gospel and surging synthesizers in which "I can't believe this, you don't wanna see me" is stated something like ten times. The sunnier environment had no evident effect on the album's outlook. Once stalled by creative fatigue, Blake decamped to Rick Rubin's Malibu studio. ![]() A couple weeks later, the long-delayed The Colour in Anything materialized at a length nearly that of his first two albums put together. In late April, when it seemed like he might spring on his audience a tune named something like "Proper Music," Blake received a profile boost from Beyoncé, whose Lemonade prominently sported a pair of songs featuring his assistance. Another song, a vaguely aching minimal dub ballad, was aired two months later, possibly chosen because it too had a title, "Timeless," that could potentially wind up detractors. Drawn like a scene from a dissolving relationship that immediately precedes release and relief, "Modern Soul" hinted that the album could be a bit brighter with less of the anguish that permeated the singer/producer's first two albums. He appeared on an Airhead track and released a 12" on his 1-800-Dinosaur label, yet it wasn't until February 2016, during his BBC Radio 1 program, that listeners got their initial taste of album three. Little was heard from James Blake throughout an almost three-year period that followed Overgrown, his second straight Top Ten U.K. Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |