James Blake, the South London producer and vocalist recently interviewed by FACT, has two new singles in the pipeline for Hessle Audio and Brainmath.
His release for Hessle, the label run by Ben UFO, Ramadanman and Pangaea, is an EP with three new tracks, ‘Give the Man a Rod’, ‘Buzzard and Kestrel’ and ‘The Bells Sketch’. Very different from the super-heavy dubstep single ‘Air and Lack thereof’ that he originally made his name with, it finds Blake experimenting further with space and voice, resulting in tracks that should appeal to fans of the xx and Arthur Russell as well as say, Untold.
There’s even room for a superb synthesizer wig-out that recalls Blake’s maddening remix of Untold’s ‘Stop What You’re Doing’, one of our top 100 tracks of last year.
Blake’s single for Brainmath [cover art above], another label run by Tom ‘Ramp Recordings’ Kerridge that’s put out records by Untold, Zomby and Sbtrkt, is a collaboration with Airhead, a fellow Londoner who we’ve been keeping tabs on for a couple of months now. It’s titled ‘Pembroke’ / ‘Lock in the Lion’, and scheduled for release on February 22.
The Hessle Audio EP is due out in March. You can listen to ‘Pembroke’ below.