Album Review: James Blake

James Blake. I don't know what it is about him - but his music absolutely flattens me every time. The depth and introspection? The ability to span genres and influencers, from Kendrick Lamar to Joni Mitchell to Bon Iver to Kanye? His sound has been described as "gently immense", and that's the perfect way to put it. It leaves me paralyzed and helpless. I am a forever fan.

He's been busy this past year, between a BBC curation residency that just wrapped up and starting a label, 1-800-Dinosaur. Somehow he found time to produce the 200 Press EP, as well, composed of three tracks and a poem. Below is the entire EP, in abbreviated form.

The opener "200 Press" is industrial-sounding but expertly balanced, with JB's falsetto hook looping through the track. The recurring chorus is "gather 'round the heat like a campfire", and while "200 Press" is about as far from a bonfire tune as you can get, the heat is there. It's intense and immediately pulls at you like a riptide. The heavy layers quietly suck you in without warning, exactly as an opener should.

"200 Pressure", the following track, has a frenetic energy and in true JB fashion, it's pretty hypnotizing. It sounds underground, grungy, with the same industrial flavor as "200 Press". There is a mania released within the perfect syncopation, and a chorus of Blakes drones throughout.

"Building It Still" is the most relaxed, "chillest" track on the EP. A sound somewhere between dripping water, chirping birds and a sqeaky wheel underlines the beginning measures and appears throughout, tying everything together. The body of the song is simpler than the previous tracks, but with the constant heartbeat of the piano and punctuation of Blake's chorus, "building it still". 

The closing note on this EP is Blake's poem, "Words That We Both Know". I've never noticed how similar a speaking voice and a piano can sound, but in "Words", they sound parallel even in their distortion. It is both comforting and strange. The lyrics of this closing track disclose JB's poetic prowess, and are worth reading a few times. A closing line like "youth is a loveless furrowed brow" is evidence that Blake's introspection and depth, so adeptly conveyed through the synths, loops, and hooks of this EP and the past two albums, can be spoken just as powerfully as it can be played.

At 16 minutes long, it's easy to listen to a few times through. You can find each track on Youtube, or listen in its entirety on Spotify. The abbreviated version is embedded through Soundcloud, for your listening pleasure. :)