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What a tremendous week for the saviour of post-dubstep for singer-songwriter James Blake as not only did the album come out on Monday, Tuesday saw the airing of his second BBC Maida Vale session (shared between Gilles Peterson and Zane Lowe - currently still available on ‘Listen Again’, see links below) and the start on a 4 gig residency at St. Pancras Church that’s situated behind the Eurostar Terminal Station.

So as that’s very close to FLY’s central London office, I did my best to get an exclusive interview before the show. Unfortunately, communications with the powers that get such things sorted out didn’t quite come off and the sight of a damp Hectic (it’s been raining all day in London Town today) is not really what any musician wants to see in the middle of a sound check.

It didn’t do me any favours saying that James was currently the flavour of the month (not only with the album’s release) but he was also at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards gig at KOKO in January, “I hope I’ll last a bit longer than that!” he says with a cheeky grin.

Perhaps the implied fickle nature of fame was a Freudian slip as one of the tracks on the album is called ‘Give Me My Month’ and as Peterson had a similar late nite school boy error in the week calling the track ‘To Care Like You’ as ‘To Come Like You’, I think we’d best move on.

Whilst the album isn’t dubstep as such, how did he feel about journalist referencing it a dubstep in the reviews of the new album, “Well, I think they’ve listened to the CMYK and Klavierwerke EPs and I still DJ at dubstep nights”.

And there is a dubstep edge to it, but no more. If you wondered what Burial would sound like at home as post-emo Willy Mason in a mimialist JamieXX world, James Blake might be it. There’s certainly lots more influences than those I’ve mentioned on the album but much like the blurred photographs of Blake on the cover and CD booklet, the music is hard to nail down as one thing or another which makes the album so original and appealing. At times its’ schizophrenic as in an underground and intangible way (like psych-voder Lindisfarne I&II) and then heart wrenching soul-pop at the other; particularly the sibling tale of ‘I Never Learnt To Share’ and the only cover version on the album, Fiest’s ‘Limit To Your Love’ (a modern day classic if there was one).

It’s the vocal to ‘Limit To Your Love’ and Nina Simone-esque piano that’s got Blake the daytime radio airplay but even then, it’s his originality and range on the tracks that crave your attention. I’ve heard people say that they don’t get what all the fuss is about and it does seem odd that the soul-pop vocal to ‘Limit To Your Love’ is replaced on other tracks with vocoder/effects (like on ‘To Care (Like You)’) but when Herbie Hancock did it, it didn’t make him any less of a genius.

Other stand-out tracks are the opener ‘Unluck’ and ‘The Wilhelm Scream’, which was the track they were playing at gig.

One of Blakes’ ‘tricks’ is to warp his keyboard into a strange accordion/church organ sound which is sort of appropriate as for the St. Pancras Church gig (there’s no church organ but I did encourage them to consider having a look at Turner Sims as a venue, see HERE) but Rob McAndrews (guitar, samplers) was telling me that he’d just got an efx pedal that make simulates the sound of a big church organ which was handy; the third member of the band, Ben Assiter (drums) was sorting out the cups of tea.

Listening to the album again, perhaps there is more spirituality and soul to it than you find on first listen. It certainly is something special for a 22 year-old who is clearly at home experimenting with all sorts of digital hardware but from what I heard, the live trio is potentially the next giant step.

More gigs and festivals are being lined up so we’ll definitely be hearing much more of James Blake and in the meantime, I’ll try and get that interview sorted - it’s just the beginning as someone might say.

Live dates:
St. Pancras Old Church, Pancras Way NW1: 10th and 24th February, March 10th and March 24th

Reviewed: James Blake - James Blake (Atlas/A&M Records) Cat. No ATLAS02CD Release date: 7th February 2011
1. Unluck (3:00)
2. The Wilhelm Scream (4:37)
3. I Never Learnt To Share (4:52)
4. Lindisfarne I (2:42)
5. Lindisfarne II (3:02)
6. Limit To Your Love (4:37)
7. Give Me My Month (1:56)
8. To Care (Like You) (3:53)
9. Why Don’t You Call Me (1:36)
10. I Mind (3:31)
11. Measurements (4:20)

Links:
Sound of 2011 - the most promising new artists www.bbc.co.uk
jamesblakemusic.com
www.myspace.com/jamesblakeproduction
Gilles Peterson - 09.02.10 www.bbc.co.uk Gilles has two Maida Vale session tracks from man of the moment, James Blake - both choice cuts from his self titled debut that dropped this week.
James Blake — Unluck (Live In Session at Maida Vale)
James Blake — To Care (Like You) (Live In Session at Maida Vale)
Zane Lowe - 09.02.10 www.bbc.co.uk James Blake at Maida Vale
www.rsrecords.com
www.myspace.com/randsrecords
Inventive Producer One Dubstep Ahead - James Blake - The Stool Pigeon p6.
www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk
St Pancras Parish Church…www.stpancraschurch.org