James Blake

[Benny Bunter]

That's fair enough

I was thinking more about personal experience, like when I was talking to the guys at the local record store about Mosca - Nike and the guy said 'it sounds just like old house though' and this is coming from a guy that loves old house, surely that's a a good thing? And the next rebuttal was 'I don't like it because people are saying it's meant to be new'
s

Get this all the time when I mention Funky to people. 'It all just sounds likes Masters at work'.

For a start; No it doesn't.

Secondly: So. Fucking. What?

 

[CrowleyHead]

Yeah, I wouldn't actually associate James Blake or anyone else under disscussion here with concepts and agendas anyway. Probably the most conceptual / agenda oriented person in the dubstep / whatever millieu (and one of the most obviously intellectual as well) is Kode 9 who I have a frankly embarrasingly fanboyish devotion to.

The IDM fear is about the replacement of raw, exciting, mindbending music with something that is quite clever and uses all the right signifiers of good taste (while conspicuously avoiding anything that might be seen as cheesy) and does some vaguely innovative stuff, but without ever feeling like it matters (there's an interesting discussion to be had about if and why a radical step forward in a scene with a reasonably well developed musical language feels so much more exciting than another eclectic mutation in a scene full of unrelated eclectic mutations) and without ever really being genuinely exciting.

I'm not saying that The Genre Formerly Known As Dubstep is like that at the moment, but it's a tendancy that people are quite reasonable to be worried about, particularly when a lot of the talk around it comes out of a distaste for 'stupid wobble' and a reverence for the 'proper musicality' of classic garage. (Also, I think 'intelligent drum and bass' and the whole jazzy fusiony breakbeaty 'thinking of putting a band together to do some of this stuff live' scene from the mid 90s is probably a better analogy than IDM?)

That's actually very appropriate, and kind of what I meant to allude to; somebody threw out IDM earlier, and I originally responded on internet pirated on a cash register (Long story) so I was just condensing/being lazy...

What I'm getting at though, which appears with some criticism, is that there's a certain fear of... I don't know, repeat mistakes? I remember getting into dubstep, Generation Bass happened and I was in ecstasy as any young person excited by new music can be... And one thing that blew me away was that I actually saw people complaining about Silkie's jazzy tunes, and Roni Size/LTJ Bukem was used as a negative comparison. Almost as if they were saying 'here we go again, not this time, we won't be fooled, no sir!'

So with James Blake, I don't know WHY... but I think people are really suspicious of producers agendas behind production? It reminds me of that whole Simon Reynolds bitching about "This name = innovator, this name = imitator" thing from the Jam City incident...

 

[IanTheM]

What I'm getting at though, which appears with some criticism, is that there's a certain fear of... I don't know, repeat mistakes? I remember getting into dubstep, Generation Bass happened and I was in ecstasy as any young person excited by new music can be... And one thing that blew me away was that I actually saw people complaining about Silkie's jazzy tunes, and Roni Size/LTJ Bukem was used as a negative comparison. Almost as if they were saying 'here we go again, not this time, we won't be fooled, no sir!'

I think it stems from the fact that people in dubstep tend to like things for the wrong reasons. It's not often that you get people discussing how much they liked a melody in a tune, or how well it was arranged. Usually it's like when that Mosca tune came out. It was more about how genre bending the track was, than anything. Same with the FACT freakout over Jam City. In the same way, things are hated for the wrong reasons too.

 

[sepalcure]

love it

can't wait for the R&S debut. He's young and is probably still finding his voice. Hoping he sticks with it - the results will be amazing.

 

[Slothrop]

I think it stems from the fact that people in dubstep tend to like things for the wrong reasons. It's not often that you get people discussing how much they liked a melody in a tune, or how well it was arranged. Usually it's like when that Mosca tune came out. It was more about how genre bending the track was, than anything. Same with the FACT freakout over Jam City. In the same way, things are hated for the wrong reasons too.

Tbh I often kind of wonder how much I've become too caught up in the grand narratives at the expense of the music.

But then I also wonder how people like Blackdown and Kode 9 get on - being clearly very aware of the grand narratives while apparently also being creative in a fairly unselfconscious way...

 

[UFO over easy]

the r&s release is a 4 track 12, it's great but it's not the album there's an out and out dancefloor tune on there which is on my luckyme mix. that's one of the great things about his stuff, he can switch from stuff like that or the untold remix to stuff like buzzard and kestral or give a man a rod and it's still identifiably him. over the last few months i've seen couples slow dancing to both those tunes, kind of amazing given tom's comments about 'slurred morbidity'.. i can't think of many other producers who can create that kind of tension and breadth of possible interpretation

I conversely find it tedious reading about artists who are supposed to be the future of music, and then upon hearing them realising that I have been utterly duped. Then again, I could just not read the hype.

by and large the hype has very little to do with the producers in question. neither joy orbison nor james blake for example has spoken much in public. they've written their music and played their sets, but very little of the discourse around them or the scene they're supposed to represent is actually about either of those things. it is of course fine not to like their stuff, and to express that, but there's no call to be as deeply self important and unpleasant as so many have on this thread, and are routinely on here

Also, is it just me, or is the Untold remix a massive rip-off of Joker? Not saying this is bad mind, and it's an OK track - everyone rips everyone else off - but it seems blatant.

I don't hear that at all really, other than on a basic 'look - synths' level

Not to say he's not doing great tunes (not sure, have only briefly listened to them)

not to pick on any one person but this seems to sum it up


when i posted that youtube of war i never thought i'd see anyone actually try and compare jon e cash and james blake, but that's kind of fun. last friday i played Evil (dirt, but not on youtube. http://www.htfr.com/playlist/MR129389.m3u) next to that R&S tune. no one seemed to mind

 

[Slothrop]

not to pick on any one person but this seems to sum it up

Yeah, fair cop, I hereby surrender my right to complain about the Simon Reynolds "I haven't listened to much of this music or met any of the people involved but I'm going to guess at what their attitude is and then criticize it in general terms" school of journalism for the next six months or until I mend my ways.

 

[UFO over easy]

you obviously had a reasonable point to make in that post, it just wasn't about james

 

[Ory]

he's alright i suppose, doesn't blow my mind in any way though, and i have no interest in hearing it in a club. i feel equally ambivalent about desto, fantastic mr fox and some other artists people like blackdown and oneman are playing/hyping. common denominator probably being that none of them care about quantization much, and reference things a bit too far outside dance music/the nuum for me to be comfortable with.

 

[jimitheexploder]

I like James Blake because he’s refreshing, he can build strange synth funk grooves and rhythms that seem so familiar yet altogether different at the same time like he's channelling blues and dubstep all at once. He can go from slow jam soul boy R&B to fucked up grimy rave-ups in seconds and still sound like it fits. No one quite does it like him, others do elements of it: Dam-Funk has the funk and voice, Joker and Rustie the twisted dance floor synths, Peverelist has the mad deep drum patterns. But James Blake does it differently and it comes together in a really refreshing, fun way. Plus when he’s booked to play dubstep nights alongside other people in the scene he sounds like no one else, yet still somehow fits and I’m all up for that happening.

 

[franz]

Taking an example, put this stuff next to juke (or next to someone like Zomby), and it's quite clear which one is the future, and which one is the modern IDM.

a pretty dangerous statement, in my book... and it's not the IDM part i'm thinking of.

 

[Don Rosco]

reference things a bit too far outside dance music/the nuum for me to be comfortable with.

Dude. The "nuum" is nothing without references from all over. Ignoring external influences is what made DnB stale.

While i'm at it, Fantastic Mr Fox is . . . fantastic. That Black Acre 12 is great.

 

[alex]

@ben my faves by him/that label are ‘how we get down an r’ ‘invade 2’ ‘do it’ and ‘spanish fly’ they go well with a lot of the new shit.

 

[Blackdown]

Tbh I often kind of wonder how much I've become too caught up in the grand narratives at the expense of the music.

But then I also wonder how people like Blackdown and Kode 9 get on - being clearly very aware of the grand narratives while apparently also being creative in a fairly unselfconscious way...

this isn't a problem for me, in fact i find it a strength... you see the landscape around you and the way different currents are flowing and make informed decisions. and while different in practical terms, i find listening to, writing about, DJing and writing music all pretty much part of the same thing, to be honest. some producers by contrast, mala for example, seem to find that landscape very distracting.

i also have none of the grounding in critical theory/philosophy that kode, simon r etc have, just grass roots observations about music and culture - so i'm not sure how that affects things, or those who have.

 

[baboon2004]

one of the things i like about james blake stuff is the bass isn't always tied to the root note of whatever chord is playing, it goes to some surprising places. and i like how the bass is musical one minute and then abrasive and 'body' the next minute. i like bass as a melodic element sometimes. not just pressure and pulse.

Just saw this comment earlier in the thread - very interesting. One thing I liked about certain 2-step tunes was the tendency for the xylophonic low-mid 'bass' to play the melodies (guess this has appeared in funky too?) - and of course the 'double bass' in 'Neighbourhood'.

 

[wise]

when i posted that youtube of war i never thought i'd see anyone actually try and compare jon e cash and james blake, but that's kind of fun. last friday i played Evil (dirt, but not on youtube. http://www.htfr.com/playlist/MR129389.m3u) next to that R&S tune. no one seemed to mind

Jon E Cash - War works really well in a long mix with Ikonika - Please

I think Baboon had a point with his Joker comparison but i'd say the 'Stop what you're doing' remix puts Joker to shame. Imho he's been coasting since Retro Racer/Gullybrook Lane, but that's another thread entirely

 

[mms]

Jon E Cash - War works really well in a long mix with Ikonika - Please

Imho he's been coasting since Retro Racer/Gullybrook Lane, but that's another thread entirely

i said that about 2 months ago on here and got shot down
dubstep forum for clever people this .

 

[computer_rock]

this isn't a problem for me, in fact i find it a strength... you see the landscape around you and the way different currents are flowing and make informed decisions. and while different in practical terms, i find listening to, writing about, DJing and writing music all pretty much part of the same thing, to be honest. some producers by contrast, mala for example, seem to find that landscape very distracting.

i also have none of the grounding in critical theory/philosophy that kode, simon r etc have, just grass roots observations about music and culture - so i'm not sure how that affects things, or those who have.

I saw kode talk the other day about sonic warfare and towards the end someone asked him a more general question about how his academic pursuits affected his music. IIRC he expressed a similar kind of sentiment to you - that they were largely separate activities, or at least didn't embody any significant kind of tension. However he did go on to say that the certain frame of mind that accompanies the endless practice of critical appraisal necessary for running a label presented more of a problem for his own creative endeavours.

 

[Blackdown]

However he did go on to say that the certain frame of mind that accompanies the endless practice of critical appraisal necessary for running a label presented more of a problem for his own creative endeavours.

interesting... could go either way i suppose and writing a beat does create this kind of temporary blind spot with it, as while you're still close to it the emotional effect wears off so you cant easily judge how it moves you, the way you would other people's music. but equally being your own worst critic can inspire you to make better music: see Loefah circa "Jazz" and compare it with "Root".

i think it depends if you write cognitively or emotively. some producers seem to 'feel' their way around while others think about how it should sound or make them feel.

 

[Ory]

Dude. The "nuum" is nothing without references from all over.

yeah but the "a little of this, a little of that" approach to production is a dead end.