James Blake

Rolling Stone (p.75) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Blake uses neosoul keyboards, blip beats and layered snips of his heart-starved warbling to create eerie, softly roiling slow-jams." Spin (p.75) - "Using lo-fi digital techniques to play up rough edges and raw emotion, Blake's rare talent is to make music so naked seem unshakable." Uncut (p.98) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Blake takes from dubstep an awareness of space and silence; he appreciates the power of a perfectly weighted pause." Uncut (p.33) - Ranked #21 in Uncut's '50 Best Albums Of 2011' -- "Blake's debut album revealed him to be an innovative singer-songwriter....Spare, beat-strewn and strikingly plaintive." Magnet (p.37) - Ranked #20 in Magnet's '20 Best Albums Of 2011' -- "His itchy productions were born with an innate sense of agitated drama, the tension that lies the shadows of a pregnant pause or fermata rest." The Wire (p.46) - "Blake is an instrumentalist, digital synthesist, producer and engineer too, and -- most crucially of all -- blurs the boundaries between these roles." CMJ - "[Blake] reaches unplumbed emotional depths using the mostly untapped potential of electronics to reach the soul." Q (Magazine) (p.113) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Blake has an uncanny ear for what to leave out, and how absence can play on the imagination." Paste (magazine) - "With a stripped-down, uncluttered sound, Blake's creations are hauntingly beautiful. His voice echoes soulfully throughout..." Clash (Magazine) - "His are fragile, beautiful songs floating over warmly alien, sometimes seemingly formless musical structures yet it's an effort borne through unconventional levels of space and patience."

ブリアルの不在を見事に埋める格好で、老舗R&Sからのシングル群がダブステップのポスト・ムーヴメントを牽引した怪童の初作。ファイストのカヴァー"Limit To Your Love"で歌声を披露してから各メディアが神輿を担ぎ出したのは全然不思議じゃないけど、もはや踊ることから完全に逸脱しているのに真夜中の住人たちが離れずにゾロゾロと付いてくるのは、ブリアルが三人称で幽玄に描いた深淵な世界をこの青年は一人称でホントに見事に歌い上げているからであろう。マイケル・ナイマンのようなピアノと亡霊の如く変調された声ネタ、そして彼の歌声は、まるでトム・ヨークやシャーデーのようにやりきれないあなたの輪郭を露にする。時の人、じゃなくて10年後のベッドルームでもこの音楽は鳴っていると思う。
bounce (C)入江亮平