JAMES BLAKE - Overgrown

That James Blake is the spearhead of that phenomenon most people have dubbed soul-step is by now well known to all. The wait for his second LP was truly considerable, not without a certain unease stemming from the less-than-convincing performances shown on the EP "Enough Thunder", which seemed to hint at a notable decline just a few months after his splendid self-titled debut. "Overgrown" thus presents itself as the classic second album from a very young talent, praised to the skies right from his first release and from whom everyone now demands confirmation. The acid test for a musician capable of catching the audience off guard with a handful of elegant ingredients, and of placing himself in one stroke within the Olympus of "new things" coming out of the UK. 

At first impact, the expressive urgency to drag the melody into the depths of an at times almost "evangelical" soul intimacy remains only partially unchanged, while in the background a pared-to-the-bone electronic production (more than once, as on "I Am A Sold" and the Hegarty-esque "DLM") fills the space with a lean, effective synth. Likewise, the rhythm section embraces, albeit lightly, frameworks drawn from dubstep of the Hyperdub school. Digging deeper into the work of the young English electro-writer, we suddenly find (and somewhat unexpectedly) new pulses and unsuspected synthetic detours, in some cases close to the sound bearing the 50 Weapons stamp (!), as happens for instance in the abrupt tempo shifts of "Digital Lion" and "Voyeur", the two tracks that most clearly reveal the coordinates of the new path Blake has set out on.
But as already mentioned above, "Overgrown" manages to properly pick back up the electro-soul isolationism of the debut, with Blake singing while settling all too often into velvety paths, magically supported by the synth amid enchanting plays of light and sudden shadows, in an interplay of graceful stop&go moments; this is the case with the title track itself, or with the stirring melodic ascent of "To The Last", where a vocal plea takes shape worthy of the best Jamie Woon.

At the heart of the record lies its gem - the full blossoming of our man. "Retrograde" erases every doubt and lifts emotions off the ground, slowly carrying them upward in an epic, passionate crescendo, with the keyboard seeming to be played directly by a fallen angel. And it's no coincidence that this marvel is the album's first official single. All that's left to highlight, somewhat in the shadows, is the impalpable ballad "Take A Fall For Me", a partially successful collaboration with Robert Diggs, aka RZA, from which one can glean an improbable fusion between mainstream hip hop and the introverted, vaguely dubstep-inflected gait Blake displays elsewhere. Still, this remains the one small "blemish" on an otherwise strikingly pristine canvas, on which James Blake has managed to vent his passions, his own drive, with his usual reserve, in a barely sketched dance of soft soul shadings and decidedly inspired electronic embroidery.

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01/04/2013