Guest Review: Bowden On Blake

LYDIA BOWDEN, EYEWEAR MUSIC CRITIC ON THE NEW JAMES BLAKE

James Blake has fallen in love. It’s true. I found this out after I had my first listen to his second album Overgrown. Blake has recently admitted that he knew nothing about music before he met his new love, who is in fact, Theresa Wayman, singer and guitarist in American band Warpaint. In comparison to his self titled first album, which hints his earlier work with dub-step, has a haunting vocal at the forefront, all with a mixture of bleeps and hums, this second album is somewhat more soothing, with less of a kick. And it’s obvious that something in his music has changed. I guess love can have that affect.

Mr Blake in love

People have been very excited about this album. After his big entrance to the DJ music scene, his music was soon playing on all popular radio stations and loved by every pop music lover out there. People loved what they heard, it was fresh and spooky, a sound that made you feel dreamy. I found his music to be trancelike, especially after standing front row at one of his gigs in KOKO, London. I caught glimpses of people around me, eyes tight shut, all of us connecting through the vibrating floor boards as a result of way-too-deep notes that Blake filled the room with. His music adapts to any situation too; at a gig, walking through busy streets and train journeys. But it always gives us that same thought-provoking effect that we love his music for.

When I came to listen to Overgrown, I was only half satisfied. Many of the album’s songs just blend together, and there’s the odd one-off that catches you by surprise like, ‘Take a Fall For Me’ which features American rapper RZA. You can tell Blake is in love, it’s evident in a few of the lyrics. ‘We’re going to the last, you and I’ and ‘Ignore everyone else, we’re alone now’, which features in ‘Retrograde’. I will say this though, ‘Retrograde’ is a stunning piece of music, full of deeply emotional hums and it actually makes the climax, unlike some of the others.

Blake has said his first album lacked something, but I think it’s the other way around, it’s Overgrown that’s lacking. It’s hard to create an album that tops the first. As an audience we have high- very high- expectations for an artist that impressed us so much at the beginning. The xx tried and failed last year. However, I have faith in Blake, and I’m pretty confident the more I listen to Overgrown the more I will, ever so slightly fall in love with it.

Bowden is a BA student in her final months at Kingston University, and a writer and editor, as well as Eyewear's sometime music critic. She blogs here: thebowd.wordpress.com

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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