James Blake’s newest album, Attempting Occasions, finds him present in a twin state: the quiet piano and synth ballads that made him well-known, and the digital experimentation that pushes his music ahead.
His seventh solo report, and the primary he has self-released after departing a serious label, put out on his personal Good Boy imprint, it represents one in every of his most fascinating collections of songs thus far, arriving as a profitable synthesis of the singer-songwriter vulnerability explored on Associates That Break Your Coronary heart and the left-field digital textures of Taking part in Robots into Heaven.
The opening monitor, “Stroll Out Music,” is immaculate. Lyrically temporary however fascinating throughout its three-minute runtime, it establishes a mechanical pulse, regular however incapable of heat, a rhythm that retains time with out ever turning into a heartbeat. Its few parts, the drums, the repetition, that deadened vocal, maintain one another at a distance. The tune feels prefer it’s for somebody suspended between the will to maneuver ahead and the paralysis of figuring out you’re no good to anybody. It’s all hinge and no door.
The album speaks to the present cultural second, not by means of overt political messaging, however by addressing the despondency many really feel and advocating for sustaining humanity and connection amid darkness.
“The Loss of life of Love” establishes this tone instantly. Blake’s falsetto anchors you in a loneliness so full it feels bodily. A choir hums within the background. The instrumentation is gorgeous, content material to allow you to get caught within the feelings he’s speaking. “Typically we come again empty handed, like bees from plastic flowers,” a line that hits like a verdict on the whole lot hole the web has fabricated from us. By the point the Leonard Cohen pattern drifts by means of, you realise he’s not simply mourning a relationship. He’s mourning the capability itself.
“I Had a Dream, She Took My Hand” serves because the album’s coronary heart, a love-struck monitor that reimagines doo-wop by means of Blake’s singular lens, drawing on traditional American vocal group traditions together with Hollywood oddities the Lewis Sisters. The harmonies ache, the prophet synth blooms small then swells till it fills each nook, and the entire thing strikes like a reminiscence you’re afraid to wake from. “I felt increased than storms, lighter than sand,” he sings, and later, “I heard my name to the Titanic band enjoying them out, miles from land,” a poet’s method of claiming love is each the ship and the sinking. By the outro, when he’s simply repeating “come again,” the dream has dissolved and brought him with it. The manufacturing doesn’t simply assist the lyric.
The title monitor lands with English understatement so dry it barely seems like irony anymore. “You already know I’m shredded by the point I’m house,” Blake sings, “like polystyrene foam,” a element so particular and unglamorous it might solely be true. The tune strikes gradual and spacey, acoustic guitars stretched into one thing virtually indie rock, however the paranoia creeps in by means of the cracks: “the anxious find yourself alone / ’trigger there are far too many issues we will’t management.” By the point the pre-chorus reaches ‘I might die for, keep alive for,’ it’s not a vow. He’s simply telling you what it prices.
Blake has described the monitor as a space-rock love tune on the finish of the world. The title itself is a chunk of English sarcasm, the understatement of a nation that greets disaster with a shrug.
“Didn’t Come to Argue” that includes Monica Martin stands as a few of the most lovely music Blake has ever launched. The way in which he blends authentic vocals with pitched and stretched samples creates a seamless, spacious, and chic sound that feels classic and forward-looking. The strings, the bouncy beat change, and Martin’s presence on the again finish mix for one thing transcendent.
The Dave collaboration breaks the album’s momentum. That sense of drift reveals up within the writing as a lot because the music, the place sharp insights, from the Dave collaboration’s disruption to the Kanye lineage, arrive with out fairly being absorbed into the album’s wider form.
Lyrical moments like “the top of the tunnel is a remedy sofa like Tony Soprano” are crisp amid the distorted, cello-like manufacturing.
The album showcases vary. “Make One thing Up” brings vitality paying homage to sure Radiohead moments, with a drum construct that pays off satisfyingly.
Later tracks enterprise into dance-influenced territory, nodding to Blake’s digital roots. “Days Go By” is essentially the most audacious of those strikes, flipping Dizzee Rascal’s “I Luv U” into one thing lovestruck and virtually giddy, the sentiment touchdown because the groove lifts.
“Remainder of Your Life,” with its cathedral-like environment and spinning home sensibilities, builds on a hauntological Dusty Springfield pattern earlier than blooming into dancefloor euphoria. It’s lovely music whilst its stylistic shift arrives unexpectedly.
Nevertheless, the album just isn’t with out flaws. The sequencing grows disjointed within the second half, and it feels bloated with a number of weaker songs in comparison with the simple peaks of the primary leg.
“Obsession” capabilities as a short interlude that matches the album’s vitality however leaves minimal impression.
“Via the Highwire” maintains magnificence, but the fragmented progressions and glitchy gildings really feel pointless on a monitor which may have benefited from extra conventional instrumentation, notably, the tune is believed to rejig materials from Blake’s 2022 classes with Kanye West, a lineage that lends an uneasy subtext to its themes of status and fallen glory. “Really feel It Once more,” although showcasing Blake’s outstanding tone, is simply too temporary to depart a long-lasting mark.
The album closes with “Simply A Little Greater,” the report’s most explicitly political assertion, Blake cataloguing fractured info and civic helplessness with the resigned readability of somebody who has stopped ready for solutions. It ties the whole lot collectively, rewarding endurance with area to breathe and mirror.
This isn’t an album about falling in love. It’s about holding one thing alive after the sensation has already began to erode.
The manufacturing all through balances magnificence with experimentation, and Blake’s vocal performances stay gorgeous throughout each monitor. No one else sounds fairly like him or operates with this explicit mix of vulnerability and technical ambition.
Finally, the highs of Attempting Occasions make it completely worthwhile. The lyrical focus, artistic use of samples and options, and constant thematic through-lines make it one in every of Blake’s most targeted information. It’s an album that reveals new dimensions with every move. For all its inconsistencies, it finds an artist pushing his boundaries whereas remaining unmistakably himself.
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