James Blake – Love What Happened Here

Nothing makes me happy like a new James Blake release. Thank God the past couple of years have been full of them. Love What Happened Here came out earlier last month (listen to the title track here on Soundcloud, I have no idea who frankyboy is), and the fact that I only came across it today because it was reviewed on Pitchfork scares me. New year’s resolution: start following other music sites.

Quick recap of 2011 for James Blake: His awesome self-titled debut ended up hitting most year-end best of lists, but the Enough Thunder EP that came out in October garnered a mixed reception. A lot of people especially disliked his bare, piano-and-voice cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” Personally, I loved every track off the album and the EP which tells me again that I need to stop relying solely on Pitchfork for critical opinions.

Love What Happened Here is a 3-track EP in the vein of his earlier 2010 releases like CMYK and Klavierwerke, and has an overall similar sound as well. The title track especially reminds me of CMYK (this isn’t really surprising: it’s been around online since 2010), with the way Blake changes up the synth sounds every so often and intersperses brief vocal samples throughout. The result doesn’t disappoint, either melodically or rhythmically. Blake couples unorthodox percussion arrangements with synth motifs that blend perfectly together in a way that few artists can deliver.

“At Birth” is a slightly different. A throbbing bassline that exemplifies Blake’s dubstep roots runs through the track, with lonely vocal samples popping up every few bars before fading out. “Curbside,” however, really stands out from the pack. It’s got a big, pounding beat that involves what sounds like a timpani and haunting vocal samples that really make for an uncanny mix. The percussion starts out like a hip-hop beat (emphasized by the “no-no-no” samples that could be Kanye starting off “Stronger”), but the way that the soulful samples fit with the rest of the track make classifying “Curbside” to a genre a difficult task.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but for all the love I’ve got for Skrillex and other heavyweight dubstep artists out there, I do enjoy watching the development of artists like Blake who epitomize this quieter, more detailed strain of dubstep. I think some online communities have even started Skrillex vs. James Blake debates. To make matters worse, Blake even publicly denounced the former type of what he called “fratboy” dubstep (Wikipedia calls it “brostep”) at one point, calling it a “direct misinterpretation of the sound.” Oh no, can this mean… dubstep war???