James Blake – “This is the Real Blues” / “As You Were”

James Blake
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One bad thing about being the crown prince of post-dubstep (or basically any ‘alt celebrity’ these days) – older music you probably wish would never see the light of day somehow winds up all over the internet. First blog siren Lana Del Rey’s label-quashed singer-songwriter record wound up online (we still wish it hadn’t); now two songs alleging to be two-year-old James Blake demos made their way to Youtube.

It’s interesting to see Blake’s early forays into inspired, arty dub and house, but it’d definitely be more interesting if these songs didn’t sound like the soundtrack to a bad sci-fi movie – “This is the Real Blues” has (besides a sort of erroneous title) a wobbly synth riff that sounds like pitchshifted alien jargon and a skittering chaos of amalgamated beats.

James Blake – “This Is The Real Blues”

“As You Were” is a little more Blake-y as you know the man – deep, undulating bass drones and tense, tick-tock drum machine underlie the piano Blake uses to great effect on his most recent material. Basically, there’s little sign here as to Blake’s recent, starmaking development of that stark, sexy minimalism we love.

Listen to “As You Were” here.

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