Recently in James Blake Category

On the Record is a video series where rock stars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Click above to watch James Blake talk about his favorite album of all time. Click here to sign up for a free Rhapsody trial subscription and see what we're all about.

ARTIST: James Blake RECORD: Talking Book

---

Watch Rusko Interview		Watch Jay-Z On the Record		Watch Duran Duran Interview		Watch Deerhunter Interview

James Blake dropped by our interview lounge on the way to his first SXSW show to chat about American geography, whatever it is that dubstep is, and Hollywood sound effects.

Dubstep has been crossing over into pop music for a while now, but in all the potential ways the genre could have developed, perhaps the most unexpected line of flight is traced by James Blake, who started out sculpting idiosyncratic, atmospheric tracks in Burial's mold and now delivers a debut album that establishes him as a very different kind of musician. Largely leaving dubstep behind, James Blake finds the producer forging a more personal sound out of scraps of club music, ambient and R&B.

Blake's supple, expressive voice carries the day, multitracked into gospel-influenced harmonies or Auto-Tuned into a surreal warble. As a producer, he makes do with the bare minimum, running pitter-pat drum programming in loose rings around solemn piano chords. Between the album's naked emotion and guarded sound design, the contradictions only reinforce its uniqueness.

Last year was an astonishingly good one for electronic music, and 2011 is looking like it's no slouch either. House music and dubstep are set to be the principal poles around which everything revolves this year, but don't expect that to mean that things will stay the same. The blogosphere is already agog over James Blake, a young U.K. producer who started off making experimental beats, amplified his buzz via an unexpected Feist cover, and will soon drop a lush, vocal-centric album with huge crossover potential. Find out what's in store for Blake plus new material from Isolee, Boys Noize, Siriusmo, Wolf + Lamb, Soul Clap, and Kode 9 with the Space Ape — plus an unexpected reissue on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label.

James Blake, TBA (February 7)
The debut album from England's young singer/producer James Blake promises to resonate far beyond the edges of the "electronic music" world. Pitchfork obsessively covered the dubstep upstart's every move in 2010, and his unexpectedly emotive cover of Feist's "Limit to Your Love" blazed like wildfire across the blogosphere. His debut album may polarize, but you can expect it to be huge, with a mixture of minimalist drum programming, taut synthesizers and, at the center of it all, that voice.

Wolf + Lamb / Soul Clap, DJ Kicks (March)
As American dance music digs into the recession-era spirit of house parties and local pride — spiced with a little bit of Easyjet-set Ibiza/Berlin techno tourism — Brooklyn's Wolf + Lamb and Boston's Soul Clap have emerged as leading figures on the scene, building a fan base that spreads from Brooklyn loft parties to Burning Man raves. For their eight-handed take on the DJ Kicks series, they pull tracks mainly from their extended circle, with the likes of Lee Curtiss, Nicolas Jaar and No Regular Play offering a bleary-eyed, after-hours disco vibe. (See the track listing here.)