James Blake Limit to Your Lov

James Blake is a master of contrasts and restraint—understanding that too much of a good thing can knock people over. The good thing in question, of course, is his marvel of a voice, which effortlessly sails from its rich natural baritone to a songbird-in-the-cloud falsetto. It can match the high drama of an opera star and sometimes you get the feeling that, if used for evil, it could wipe out a landscape. So on his fifth album's opener "Famous Last Words," an aural cocoon of gently pulsing R&B with gospel flourishes, the strings and piano drop out periodically so as not to suck up all the oxygen. (It's like the musical equivalent of Coco Chanel's adage: "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.")

With over two years having passed since the release of his critically acclaimed 2019 album Assume Form, singer, and electronic musician James Blake releases his fifth studio album Friends That Break Your Heart. A concept album, Friends That Break Your Heart includes 12 tracks with collaborations with SZA, JID, SwaVay, and Monica Martin.

At some point during the COVID-19 lockdown, fans began asking James Blake to cover songs on Instagram. One in particular, a haunting rendition of “Godspeed” from Frank Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde, seemed to open the floodgates, and the idea for an EP was born. On Covers, the British singer-songwriter and electronic producer reimagines six essential songs, spanning the 1950s folk song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, made famous by Roberta Flack in 1972, to Billie Eilish’s 2018 alt-pop ballad “when the party’s over”.

At some point during the COVID-19 lockdown, fans began asking James Blake to cover songs on Instagram. One in particular, a haunting rendition of “Godspeed” from Frank Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde, seemed to open the floodgates, and the idea for an EP was born. On Covers, the British singer-songwriter and electronic producer reimagines six essential songs, spanning the 1950s folk song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, made famous by Roberta Flack in 1972, to Billie Eilish’s 2018 alt-pop ballad “when the party’s over”.

At some point during the COVID-19 lockdown, fans began asking James Blake to cover songs on Instagram. One in particular, a haunting rendition of “Godspeed” from Frank Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde, seemed to open the floodgates, and the idea for an EP was born. On Covers, the British singer-songwriter and electronic producer reimagines six essential songs, spanning the 1950s folk song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, made famous by Roberta Flack in 1972, to Billie Eilish’s 2018 alt-pop ballad “when the party’s over”.

Playing Robots Into Heaven follows the critically acclaimed Friends That Break Your Heart and will see James return to the electronic roots of his Hessle, Hemlock and R&S Records days.

Playing Robots Into Heaven follows the critically acclaimed Friends That Break Your Heart and will see James return to the electronic roots of his Hessle, Hemlock and R&S Records days.

James Blake presents a new version of his recent full-length Playing Robots Into Heaven, re-imagined via German artificial intelligence music and wellness company Endel's AI-powered technology. The company previous collaborated with James Blake for an original album entitled Wind Down. The Soundscape features five of the songs originally featured on the album with a new ambient interpolation.

Y’all ready for some new James Blake dance jams? Good! … Blake has released a magnificent new EP. Before is so titled because it supposedly hearkens back to Blake’s days as a wunderkind DJ/producer in the London club scene. That’s definitely true in a sense, but Before is also very much a product of Blake’s aftermath, matching its brisk dubstep and 2-step beats with all the studio savvy and songwriting acumen he’s accumulated over the course of the past decade. It doesn’t sound much like old-school abstract dance music James Blake to me, but it doesn’t really resemble new-school deconstructed balladeer James Blake either. It’s a new sound for him, and it’s exhilarating.