So James Blake has me excited enough to maybe start posting again occasionally. Obviously his new self titled album has gone crazy and everyone is freaking out about him, so I’m not sure just how much I can add… Folks who love him are totally lit up, and folks who don’t like him accuse him of “stealing” some sort of dubstep aesthetic and packaging it in a poppy, palatable package.

To be honest I couldn’t get all that into Mr. Blake’s older stuff; though his melodies were occasionally interesting, his production was just a step too close to Burial for comfort. It seems like he’s finally accepted the fact that he’s a soul singer. Most of the songs on this album repeat one or two melodies, while the synths, harmonies and the rest of the production seem to play around those melodies; rather than have a backing band with the singer on top, James Blake is essentially looking at his own melodies as someone remixing something would. I fucking love it.

My favourite:
(♪)James Blake – Unluck

The hit:
(♪)James Blake – Limit To Your Love

Sometimes forcing myself to work with a simpler palette is productive. And sometimes listening to a simpler palette is more revealing.

When I was seven I was in a violin maker’s workshop in Germany. His instruments sounded amazing, and in a corner he had a big ugly rock he called his “antiquing stone”; apparently lots of players won’t buy a violin that doesn’t look 300 years old, regardless of how good it sounds. That’s sort of how I’m feeling about all the bedroom artists out there who are trying SO hard to sound like dirty cassette recordings of giant synth studios from the late 1970s; why hide behind all that stuff? If the songs are good, step away from the “vintage” filters and the krazee field recordings. It’s like buying pre-faded jeans.

Kumon Plaza is some guy from the prairies, who puts out sleepy, catchy, simple tunes. After being on a bit of a Dimlite/1000Names/Ras G trip, it is kind of nice to not have to search for the melody. At some point it gets pretty brave to just put your melodies out there without any trappings.

(♪)Kumon Plaza  – Meet Me At Westmount

This quote from Marc Ribot was too good not to share.

I’m not anti-solo. I’m anti-cliché. I’m pro-solo when that’s the right thing to do, but there are default settings for jazz players—it’s the thing you do in your sleep that you hadn’t thought about. You play the head, then people take turns playing solos, then the drummer solos last, you break it up, play fours with the drummer, and then you play the head again. I think sometimes that default setting works, and sometimes it doesn’t. You do a whole night of that, your solos better be really something that’s never been done before. The players might be really into it, but me as an audience member—I’m not into it. To see people on the default settings. There are people who are brilliant soloists. Now, whether historically that’s what we need right now is another question. And whether it’s better than the brilliant soloists I can go out and buy CDs by—that’s a whole other question. Anything’s possible [laughing].

-Marc Ribot, from an interview with All About Jazz

I have a more serious post about Marc Ribot that I just need to finish up (which could take weeks given my ability to procrastinate), but in the mean time here is one of my favourite songs of his:

(♪)Marc Ribot  – No Me Llores Más