JAMES BLAKE — LIFE IS NOT THE SAME

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"I wore your favourite clothes / I said the things you'd say" — the lines in James Blake's elegaic 'Life Is Not The Same' are elegant in their simplicity, evoking the everyday remembrances that sting when someone leaves. To a metronomic beat, ticking insistently as time tends to when it means the most, Blake spins his tale of woe, centred around the chorus, the central question: "So if you loved me so much, why'd you go?" Fair logic.

With co-production from Take a Daytrip, ensuring those glitching intricacies in the beat, the crashing waves (and sharing on writing duties), Blake's voice — by turns splashed with clarity or drenched with reverb or pitch-shifted — layers on itself like a feedback loop of longing: "Life is not same when you're miles if we're miles away." As his music has shown over the years, James Blake has a knack for detail and dynamic, and 'Life Is Not The Same' is another in a long line of this minimalist-meets-massive sound.

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• 🔔 You can stream 'Life Is Not The Same' on various services. It's taken from James Blake's new album Friends That Break Your Heart, scheduled for release on 10th September. You may pre-order it, if you like.
• 🔔 The Dali-meets-impressionist artwork was created by surrealist illustrator Miles Johnston (see his Instagram also).

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📠
☟ James Blake Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ wikipedia

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🐣 EINARINDRA — SWEET HONEY FLOWS

This track is a proper little journey, a progressive electronic symphony that twists through darkness with snaking smoke twisting curling caught in angular spotlights that make cones of the thick whitegrey clouds, pulsing and strobing in time with the offbeat percussion that booms clicks and ticks for the duration. Fittingly it's called 'Sweet Honey Flows', the words which Reykjavík-based artist einarIndra sings in the choruses of this dark minimalist electronic pop song, accented with undeniable kinetic energy – but slow, aching – from its offbeat trip-hop foundation.

Synth plays a big part, fizzing and softly soothing at times, a great backdrop for the crooning vocals, both of which float into the voidsomeness going on here, the emptiness that sloshes all around and that ebbs and flows on all sides of the islets and crags of sound, a tide of dim spaciness that gives this track a moody somewhat sultry atmosphere—reminiscent of James Blake, for instance. The simple intricacy of the beat is something to get latched onto as well, with interesting rhythms between the alternating sharp sheen of the hi-hats and the full-bodied smash of snares and the thudding kicks playing in rubato triplets. It rises up later, progressing as it does into a tract of fairly intense synth buzzing and striking soulful strings, but it is restrained, maintaining its neo-noir cool, its nowhere romantic despairing flavour.

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• 🔔 This wonderful track is taken from einarIndra's Unravel EP, released at the beginning of August by champions of electronic music in Iceland, Möller Records. You can purchase the EP for €5.16 or more from Bandcamp.

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📠
☟ einarIndra Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ itunes ⚘ myspace

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