- James Blake must have chuckled when he read the reviews of his debut album suggesting that he'd somehow sold out, gone soft, abandoned the rigors of bass music for an emo falsetto.
Too melodic? There's not even anything resembling a proper note on "Order"—just a dull subwoofer throb, ringed by the rattle of torn paper. It's mostly just moving air—bass music reduced to its most basic state—with a filament of tone flickering unsteadily in the background. I'm reminded of Ilpo Väisänen's dancehall-inspired 10-inches from ten years ago: "Order" has a similar approach to space and volume, heaving like an iron lung with a hole in it. The queasy frequencies, high and low alike, give off an unsettling air, like synthetic fiber that's been singed.
"Pan" is slightly more substantial: there are tuned toms that sketch something like a melody, and sheets of reverb that take on recognizable tone color; there's an actual two-note bassline. We have lift-off, we have "music." But that's as far as he gestures towards club convention. Even played loud, this feels quiet; every sound is ringed in a halo of white noise that makes it feel like a whisper. The boom and hiss recall faintly Sleeparchive, if rearranged for a 140 BPM pulse and attacked with a dirty eraser. Sounding bruised and frostbitten, he couldn't be less emo if he died.