After just a handful of EPs and gigs, James Blake was being touted as the brightest new star of dubstep – a world he's already moved beyond on his wonderfully poised, left-field debut album. He still can't believe the attention he's getting, he tells JIM CARROLL
THERE ISN’T room to swing a cat in the venue. You’ve a lengthy queue at the front door, another queue to get in to the main room and a third queue trying to get in to the middle of the club. There are 33,000 people on the loose at the Eurosonic festival in the Dutch city of Groningen, and it feels as if every single one of them wants in to Simplon to see James Blake.
The facts: James Blake is 22 years old, and 6ft 5in tall. He is an electronic music producer and singer from London who has already released a handful of EPs and has a debut album on the way.
The spin: he is the Sound of 2011, the next big thing, the brightest star in the new music firmament. Etc.
More facts: this is his seventh gig. Ever.
It’s a mesmerising show. Operating with a palette whereby less is more, Blake’s sound is sparse and streamlined, with space providing the light and shade. The vocals and pace will remind you of Mark Hollis, Portishead and Bon Iver, but the combination of sleepy- headed bleeps and slow-motion classic minimalism with that voice is something new and exciting.
“It’s early days for the live show, but people are acting as if I’ve been touring for a year.”
A week after the Dutch date and Blake is still coming to terms with the ins and outs of the show. “What I wanted to do with the live show was be honest about the sounds,” he explains. “I didn’t want to dress the songs up or try to achieve something more rounded than the record.
“Sometimes, people go off to do live shows of electronic tracks by replacing all the electronic tracks with a band, and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to do the record like it sounds, but with all the electricity of a live show as if anything can go wrong at any moment.”
Blake’s back story is spectacularly unspectacular. He grew up in London, where he listened to a lot of music. “Old r’n’b like Ray Charles, some gospel, a bit of folk. I’ve recently got into a lot of folk, which I remember hearing as a kid but never getting into – people like Joni Mitchell.
“Stevie Wonder was my big influence. I listened to every single one of his albums and every single thing he did.”
Singing and playing music in public? “I sang in one choir for a bit, but not so much or for long. I was very nervous when I did it.”
Everything changed when Blake went to Goldsmiths, part of the University of London, to study popular music.
“It all kicked off because I bought a laptop. Prior to that, I didn’t really have a computer which I could happily produce on, so that MacBook changed my life. I got Logic and started messing around with beats. Then I started getting into dubstep.”
Blake would go to clubs such as FWD>> and be blown away by what he’d hear before returning to his laptop and working on his own web of sounds. EPs for the Hemlock, Hessle and RS labels followed, each one bolder and brighter than the last, as Blake moved on and up from the dubstep world.
To Blake, there’s a logical progression from those EPs to the beautiful textures, bewitching sonics and wonderful poise of his self-titled debut album.
“I don’t really see a divide between the dubstep stuff and the vocal stuff on the album. They’re all songs. If you’re from the dubstep world and if you’re going through a phase where all you listen to is dubstep – and that’s a phase I went through – you’re probably going to listen to my album and say it’s just weak dubstep.
“But it was not about making a dubstep album. I was composing in the same way as I always compose, and using my voice in a different way and using fuller excerpts. I was actually trying to write quite aggressive beats for the album, but it didn’t turn out that way.” The album allowed him to play with a new-found fondness for sculpted lyrics.
“I’m incredibly precise with lyrics. They might sometimes feel nonsensical and cryptic – and sometimes they are nonsensical and cryptic – but they’re nonsensical and cryptic in a way which pleases me phonetically. I love when you put certain words together which work really well as sounds, especially when you sing them.
“I’m not a poetry fanatic, and I haven’t read a lot of poetry, but as I’ve started to write lyrics I’ve discovered a love for the composition of sentences and structure from people like William Blake which never occurred to me before. It gives me a way of summing up quite a complex thing in very little words, which is one of my favourite things to do.”
What’s remarkable about the acclaim Blake has received is that the record is right out of left field. It doesn’t contain any big radio-friendly tunes or sticky pop hooks. If the Sound of 2011 is a minimal electronic album it is going to be a great year.
“The album is so left-field that I can’t even believe it’s getting this sort of attention. I can’t believe people are talking about it in the way that they are. It surprises me, given how left-field the tracks and production are, that I’m even mentioned in the same breath as Jessie J. We couldn’t be more polar opposites in style and delivery, so it’s strange to see.
“It’s good for me, though, because I don’t have to change anything. Having mainstream success is not my goal, but the best thing I can hope for is if the mainstream take to the album. What’s nice is that through releasing those EPs I’ve silenced people who think I’m going mainstream before they’ve even had a chance to open their mouth to say it. You can see where the sounds come from. There are no secrets.”
The one tune that has received a lot of radio play is Blake's elegant cover of Feist's Limit to Your Love, which he came across on the movie The Accidental Husband.
“It was a simple, effective melody and I thought I could do something with it. I liked the chords, I liked how simple it was. I liked her version, but when I started playing it I realised what a great song it was.”
He won’t, though, be doing piano and vocal versions of other tracks he likes from movies.
"I won't be repeating myself. I don't want to go back to things. I've never thought about when I'm going to do my next Limit to Your Love.That's pointless. Your creativity just dries up if you think like that. You have to move on and innovate in your own way. I want to write songs which are good in their own right."
There are many things getting in the way of Blake and his songwriting right now, such as promoting the album and adding to that handful of gigs.
“That’s the danger of what can happen to an artist. I’ve been adamant that I don’t want to become too tied-down to write music. I’ve not written a lot for a couple of months because I’ve had to work on the live show and do press. But there’s going to come a time when I duck out and go back to normality. This stuff does get surreal. I’m just a normal person.
“There’s very little out there about me bar my age, my height and where I went to college. It doesn’t bother me. It’s not got that bad yet, and if it gets bad I’ll come back to you.”
James Blake is released on Atlas on February 4
Dub be good to me The rise of a subgenre
James Blake isn’t the only producer from the dubstep world preparing for a mainstream close-up. After all, there comes a time when the mainstream takes an interest in every significant underground musical culture. For dubstep, that time is now.
Already, there have been decent albums from that quarter. Last year, both Mount Kimbie’s Crooks Lovers and Darkstar’s beautiful North won many champions among music fans who wouldn’t necessarily be regulars at clubs like Mud, Dublin bass-friendly stronghold which takes place on Fridays at the Twisted Pepper.
Add in dubstep supergroup Magnetic Man (Skream, Benga and Artwork are the scene’s Crosby, Stills Nash) who will be appearing on a festival stage near you and the amazing Katy B (pop’s potentially most exciting new star) and you’ve a scene very much coming to the fore. When you’ve people noting the dubstep influence on the new Britney Spears single and when you’ve dubstep on the playlist at Spin FM, you know the crossover is on.
In 2011, acts such as Caspa, Ikonika (left), SBTRKT, Kode9, Appleblim, Sampha and Chief, as well as labels such as Hessle and Hyperdub, will continue to set agendas that may well end up influening the more adventurous pop stars and producers out there. Expect a whole lot more bass in the mix before the year is out.
