All my homies love James Blake | "Playing Robots into Heaven" review
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2024
- Apologies and thanks to Timbah.On.Toast @TimbahOnToast for the title of this video and for many of his insights. Watch his videos! / @timbahontoast
Getting to understand the true Artistry of James Blake on this one.
Skye's Stamp (Best song)- Tell me. • James Blake - Tell Me
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James Blunt has done it again!
you are 100% right about being wrong on James blake’s debut it’s an absolute masterpiece
AVAA - in his fantano interview he described this album as his 'anti-singer songwriter' album as he felt like he made the best album he could in that style on friends who break your heart.
He’s playing robots, robots being the instrument (synths) and he’s making you feel like you’re transcending into heaven. He’s playing you synths until you feel like you are in heaven
I'm so glad you've said it about the album title, professor. As a non native speaker, I find it very discouraging when I don't understand some phrases. I thought it was because of the lack of knowledge of language or culture.
Here’s my theory about the album title, as a pretty big fan of EDM music and the scene Based on nothing but my personal projections… AVAA PROF!
James Blake’s roots are in electronic music, and over the last 18 months or so, he’s been playing many DJ sets all over the world tapping back into his electronic roots while also riding the huge EDM wave occurring right now. I was lucky enough to catch one in Austin, TX and his style of dj’ing was very trance-like while still being danceable and incorporating house beats.
Many of the songs he played in the set I saw were actually tracks from this album that he must’ve been working on well before October ‘22.
I take the title as during his DJ sets, James is playing these “robots” (us attendees) into heaven. From the dj booth’s perspective, the crowd are all swaying back and forth and usually dancing in sync, almost robotically and programmed. But as an attendee at these raves or EDM shows, the DJ themself is playing us into a state of euphoria and, well heaven that contrasts with how it may look to the person on stage.
Although we may look like robots to him, the DJ, the heaven-like state we reach at these sets feels a lot different than how it may look… more zombified and robotic
I think this album is very simply just about the merging of human emotions with AI, technology, robots all of that. The dystopian atmosphere, a lot of the lyrics I’ve picked out that are so heavily processed they sound robotic, I think it’s simply just James Blake making art and expressing himself; but with this added layer of merging his feelings with these “robots”
I hear it really well on loading, on fall back, and the outro to me is the most thematic on the whole album. It sounds like whatever I would imagine robot emotions to sound like.
Almost like a robot mourning and moving towards “heaven” or some idealized version of that which could simply just be the next album, the next day, the next interview etc.. whatever Blake, do the robot, or the listener has next in life.
If anything, the outro felt like an atmospheric meditation that sounds a lot like the cover looks.
Even if this isn’t what Blake intended; this is how I interpreted it and I’ve seen a few people while I was lurking on Reddit say some really similar stuff.
Awesome video as always!
You are right about being wrong lol. That self titled album is his peak imo, def a near masterpiece
Overgrown is amazing too imo
Enough Thunder is just as good as overgrown but my favorite the color in anything is his best work to date it's a literal masterpiece
I loved his debut and Friends That Break Your Heart, but his other projects have fallen through the cracks for me, but this project was really fascinating. Definitely not one I’ll probably revisiting a bunch, but it’s still incredibly solid. AVAA!
James Blake's debut is perfect and is probably his best. He's progressed more as a songwriter for sure, but there's this really unique mix of lofi singer songwriter music and electronic music that evokes such a specific mood that he hasn't really captured since. I had a similiar experience with it that you had, but it really grabs you more and more with each listen.
I still need to listen to this new one more, I'm not quite there with it *yet*. But hope the debut grows on you more!
Man I really think you should give overgrown another listen that album is sonically and atmospherically James best stuff in my opinion it’s nested perfectly in-between electronic and acoustic textures
@@albert5838 I LOVE overgrown, they're neck and neck for me tbh
@albert5838 there's just something special about the debut because it was like this brand new sound. Overgrown is like a more refined version
James Blake's s/t album is a winter record. Listen to it when you're cold and alone.
AVAA!! :) (am still crossing my fingers for a review on the new ANOHNI and the Johnson’s album 🙏)
Havent watched the video yet, but i love the title
Listened to the album just in time for this !!!! AVAA
Hey Professor Skye, love your videos. I was doing a quick search to see if you had reviewed "God's Country" by 'Chat Pile' after listening to the album for myself and loving it. I wasn't able to find a review of the album from your channel so I wanted to go ahead and pass it on as a recommendation to you!
Came out while my baby was being born. Listened in the hospital. Liked it a lot.
@@professorskye hey skye, any chance you will get around to talking about the new sprain album, they are on the same label as chat pile. id like to hear your thoughts on some of the lyrical themes. one of my favorites this decade already!
I'm not sure If James confirmed this at all or not, but the album cover is staunchly similar to one of the final shots from "The Seventh Seal". I like to view the album's emotional turn at the end, and a sudden grasp on what matters suddenly before reaching death, with the title track serving the same purpose as the final scene in seventh seal. It's coming to grips with mortality and the finite elements of life. Or maybe that's all an over-analyzation lol
Would be amazing to hear your thoughts on the new Sprain album
Alright I'm gonna start this comment apologizing for two reasons: the first one is how big this comment has become. The second one is my not-that-polished english, since it's not my native language.
Big fan of your channel and also a big fan of James Blake's work, and this one was just on point to me.
I'd like to share with you guys why this album was so appealing. Tldr: I think this album is kind of an homage to Mark Fisher (1968 - 2017).
Just a little context: I'm a MSc student on arts and one of the main authors I use on my research is Mark Fisher. Yes, the one who wrote Capitalist Realism; which was also (and mainly, some might argue) an amazing writer on music as well. He has another great book called "Ghosts of My Life", which is more focused on his political views through his music writings than in Capitalist Realism.
And I bring this up for two-and-a-half specific reasons.
The first one is a little bit more rough around the edges, but I'll try my best to . There's a chapter on this book where he analyzes an underground electronic act called Mordant Music and their 2006 album Dead Air (which became one of my favorites, I highly recommend to anyone who's interested in experimental electronic music). And there's this excerpt that sold me on this album:
"Listening to Dead Air is like stumbling into an abandoned museum 200 years on the future where old Rave tracks play on an endless loop, degrading, becoming more contaminated with each repetition; or like being stranded in deep space, picking up fading radio signals from a far distant earth to which you will never return; or like memory itself re-imagining an oneiric television studio, where fondly recalled continuity announcers, drifting in and out of audibility, narrate your nightmares in reassuring tones". Can't indicate the exact page because the only version I have with pages is the Brazilian edition of this book (by the way, hello from Brazil!)
Why do I bring this up? Well, if you check out this album, you can see some resemblance on this album. But still, it feels quite grounded in modern days, not on a futuristic set like Fisher describes here. When you put both albums side by side, it kinda feels like Playing Robots Into Heaven is the exact soundtrack to the end of Dead Air's world. And then we come to the second reason I think this is so interesting:
Mark Fisher wrote about James Blake. At least once, on an article which is also in Ghosts of My Life (and this article might be Skye's cup of tea, especially because this chapter talks about Kanye and Drake as well). He writes that Blake's music "(...) there is a simultaneous feeling that the tracks are both congested and unfinished, and that incompleteness - the sketchy melodies, the half-hooks, the repeated lines that play like clues to some emotional event never discloses in the songs themselfes - may be why eventually they get under your skin". Here, he perfectly summarizes why we love his songs so much. But I digress.
This shows some aesthetic connection between these two artists, especially some sense of unfinishedness and some approach to hauntology - a term used by Jacques Derrida to explain some things way too complex for a place like a comment on UA-cam, but I invite everyone that's interested to check out Fisher's book. And then comes my half reason (which is more like a way to methodologically close this little essay) that is Burial.
It's way too clear to me that Burial was a huge influence on this album, especially on tracks like Loading and I Want You To Know. Blake's flirtation with Future Garage in this album is quite explicit. And guess what? Burial has not one but two chapters dedicated to on Ghosts of My Life. One review of his self-titled album and an interview to hype up his sophmore album.
Blake strikes me like a guy who would probably be aware of Mark Fisher's work, especially considering how huge and influential Fisher was in the UK when Blake was starting his artistry ventures - and still is, to be honest. And the name, Playing Robots Into Heaven, which is highly influenced by Brian Eno, seems like such a beautiful way to honor Fisher's memory. And I swear I won't get into the other book that Fisher wrote where he also wrote about Brian Eno.
So, I think there are a lot of aesthetic connections to this album and Fisher's work. And as he's one of my main guys on my research, I was so glad to hear it. A couple days ago (before the album was released), I was thinking that the last electronic album that rocked my world was 2012-2017 by Against All Logic. I'm so glad that Blake did this album and I'm so glad to be here as a witness to all discourse this album is getting.
Well, I've been thinking about these relations ever since I listened to this album for the first time. Happy to have some space to share with you guys! Cheers from Brazil!
Interesting stuff! Keep up the good work.
Can you do a reaction video to Mandarones - Queen Of The Riverbed? (I’m playing drums in this band)🙏
Album of the year.
I'm seeing him in London soon! AAVA
Is this the dude with losing presidential candidates bumper stickers on his car?
You really should listen to a burial album
dundereaded minigogins or whatever avaa
Working With Ye shows.
Day 176 of Asking you to Review Achilles Come Down by Gang of Youth
Respect the dedication
@chrilborn4138 Thanks man!
please review mitskis new album omg
Working on it
Avaa
Jame’s second album is soooooo good it’s not even funny.