{"id":7289,"date":"2013-07-09T15:33:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-09T15:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=7289"},"modified":"2013-07-09T15:33:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-09T15:33:29","slug":"james-blake-overgrown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/07\/09\/james-blake-overgrown\/","title":{"rendered":"James Blake – Overgrown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Overgrown-art-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/b>Post-dubstep is a somewhat nebulous label that has been applied to sounds as disparate as brostep to revivalist UK garage. Yet I feel it best applied to the work of an artist like James Blake, who infuses the rudiments of classic dubstep\u2019s sound (a half-timed tempo, extreme sub-bass heavy mixes, dramatic uses of pauses and drops) with his own musical influences. In Blake\u2019s case, his biggest influences outside the world of \u201ctraditional\u201d \u201806-\u201808 dubsep are \u201860s soul, \u201890s R & B, gospel music, Berlin-techno, and confessional singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Those sonic hallmarks can be found layered all across his latest album, Overgrown<\/em>. While I enjoyed Blake\u2019s earliest EPs for the R&S label, his self-titled LP left me wanting. I felt it lacked the vitality of his earlier work. To put it crudely, I found it boring. That is not at all the case with Overgrown<\/em>. On his latest outing Blake distils and arranges his multiplicity of influences into a smooth, sexy, and exciting kaleidoscopic whole. It is truly of remarkable construction. There are several firsts for the artist on this album, including \u201cTake a Fall for Me,\u201d<\/a> a glorious collaboration with RZA that has the producer trying his hand at post-Dilla beat work and succeeds wildly to my mind. Another first is his four-to-the-floor techno banger \u201cVoyageur.\u201d The track begins , as many of his do, with some of his trademark piano samples and vocal chops, only to build to a thumping neon-hued club tune that recalls London\u2019s Night Slugs label. This album won me over in the best way possible. If you\u2019re a fan of James Blake, or any of the sounds referenced herein, give it a listen, you might find yourself enthralled. (Republic, republicrecords.com<\/a>) Alexandre Ilkkala-Boyer <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Post-dubstep is a somewhat nebulous label that has been applied to sounds as disparate as brostep to revivalist UK garage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[299,1045],"class_list":["post-7289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-edm","tag-ulteriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}