0:03

Zane Lowe, Apple Music. Hi everybody,

0:05

it's Zane. Thanks for joining me once again on the interview series.

0:08

This week's conversation is with an amazing

0:10

artist and producer called James Blake. James'

0:13

first steps into music really were in this kind

0:15

of eccentric dance floor focused electronic

0:18

music space, but then as he started

0:20

to evolve as a songwriter using his voice more

0:23

people, including myself, all became pretty

0:25

obsessed with James' ability to just

0:27

make us stop what we're doing with a simple arrangement

0:29

and his voice. The songwriting really became

0:31

a focus and the rest is history. But

0:33

when I caught up with James Blake at

0:35

the start of 2023 to hear new music,

0:37

it

0:37

became clear that he missed that energy

0:40

that you get from playing your own records on dance

0:42

floors and seeing how people are reacting at the peak of

0:44

the night. You combine where he

0:46

started, where he's been, and where he's at

0:48

right now and you get this amazing new album called

0:50

Playing Robots Into Heaven. We

0:52

speak about that and a whole lot more with the one and only

0:55

James Blake right here, our latest guest

0:57

on the interview series. Talking

0:59

to you about it gave me the confidence in

1:02

the idea that it was actually the next James

1:05

Blake

1:05

album and that it's actually my, no,

1:07

this is my sound. This

1:09

is, in my opinion, like my

1:12

most natural state. Like

1:15

there's no skill. I didn't need to

1:17

acquire any skills to make it. It just

1:19

happened

1:21

from what I was in that moment.

1:35

That was a good day in the office though, wasn't it? Yeah.

1:38

That was a good day. It was a good day. That was one

1:40

of those moments where you can sit back and confidently say to yourself quietly,

1:43

if not out loud, but probably only with you

1:45

in the room, fuck yeah. Yeah, that's

1:49

what I said. Smash that. Fuck

1:51

yeah, smash that. It's facts. Yeah,

1:53

it's facts. They are my very words. It's facts.

1:56

And then I said facts afterwards. Start talking. Start

1:58

talking. Start talking.

1:59

to finish facts. The whole

2:02

thing is a stunner. I've

2:04

lost count how many times I've been lucky enough to be

2:06

able to hang out on the record and at times

2:08

off the record and talk about music and life with you.

2:10

I treasure every one of them. And I'm

2:12

excited to dive into this and to

2:14

playing robots into heaven. I mean, you

2:16

work with people, you're a generous

2:18

collaborator, but this is you and very

2:21

few other people trying to find purpose

2:24

and trying to find something new to say. And

2:27

so the question I've never asked you is where

2:29

does it start this time?

2:32

How do you know it started? How do you know

2:34

it's the beginning of something new and not just

2:38

to doing about in the studio, fucking around with sounds,

2:40

having fun? Yeah. Well, actually,

2:42

you know, fucking around with sounds and having fun

2:44

was, was the start of this. And it

2:48

started alongside probably

2:50

friends that break your heart around that time. I

2:52

was also making kind of,

2:55

I got into like modular since

2:58

I did. And

3:00

it's obsessive, right? I know people

3:03

who've Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

3:05

It's, it's an amazing

3:07

outlet for addiction

3:10

or ADHD. It's

3:13

a midlife crisis 10 years too soon for you.

3:15

Absolutely. I mean, we have longer

3:18

lifespans now. It could be a

3:21

third life crisis. And I

3:23

just had this,

3:26

you know, this increasingly large

3:28

folder of modular

3:31

jams that I've been making. And, you know,

3:34

I had like 120 modular

3:36

jams and they were all like an hour long and I was just going through

3:38

them. And you fucking baked off your

3:41

head when you do because in my head, the best way to do

3:43

this is to just do a bowl

3:45

and just work on modular sense for

3:47

like eight hours, just consistently

3:50

just top and up just smoking mad

3:52

weed. That is the classic combo. But I find

3:55

that when I smoke weed, I see something good came out of

3:58

the 90s. You know, exactly. I can't make music. when

4:00

I was smoking weed.

4:04

The last thing I made when

4:05

I smoked was

4:08

claviovirca and it was

4:10

the sound of the synth sounds like a heartbeat

4:12

and I remember as I was making it, as I was making

4:15

it, it sounded like my heart was a rhythmic and like I

4:21

was having some kind of like

4:24

heart problem and I started freaking myself out

4:26

and worrying that I was gonna die. Got a

4:29

good tune out of it. Tune's good though, yeah.

4:33

And so I've never

4:35

really did it again because you know my

4:38

heart you know. You need it. Yeah, I need the

4:40

heart. Anyway so I did all these modular jams

4:42

anyway and I was just doing it for fun

4:45

and eventually

4:47

I started turning them into pieces of music

4:49

that were listenable because you know a lot of that stuff

4:52

it can be a bit

4:55

you know some of it's atonal some of it's

4:57

you know like not necessarily in song

5:00

format it's very it's just like long periods

5:02

of synth exploration should we say

5:04

but to the layman it just sounds

5:06

like do but

5:08

you know just just stuff that's

5:11

not I mean. Does it

5:13

sound like this? Did

5:15

this come out of a modular jam? It did.

5:18

So this was one of those things that you found settled

5:21

into and

5:23

it organically just followed.

5:26

Yeah. With no destination at the time. Mm-hmm.

5:29

Fuck me. So

5:31

with this I was listening to this

5:33

over and over and over and over and then

5:36

I came up with this melody. Yeah. And it had

5:38

no lyrics initially. We did it

5:40

on tour. And at

5:42

what point

5:45

did your

5:48

body chemistry shift and you realized

5:50

that you'd found something that you would deeply in love

5:52

with? was

6:01

like breakbeat really and

6:07

that's when I sort of fell in love with it bassline

6:10

all that stuff and then there's just a matter

6:12

of getting the beat right and now

6:14

it's about getting the fucking lyrics and the and that's

6:16

cuz oh yeah fuck that up right

6:19

this will this could be an

6:21

instrumental and move people but you

6:23

added such an incredible moment

6:25

to it it just gave it that center yeah

6:39

that's also a good fucking day the opposite a

6:42

lot of good days the other time I

6:44

come here I asked if I can have one of those buttons I

6:48

need one for my house sure when you what

6:50

you do in your house is your business but you can't touch mine

6:52

yeah right okay all right I don't go

6:55

into your house and stuff fucking around with your modular

6:57

sense but yeah you're right you're right

6:59

and I was out of older for asking it's

7:01

really challenging I think for people to

7:03

understand how tough

7:07

it is to take something that feels

7:09

really instrumentally and find a place

7:13

that's necessary for a vocal right that

7:15

needs it rather than you want to put on that needed

7:18

that if you'd wanted to put it on it probably wouldn't fit

7:20

yeah and it had to sort of be simple and the

7:23

melody had to be simple and kind of repetitive

7:25

and yeah as far as an intersection

7:27

between pop and dance music that just is

7:30

kind of it's like they they arrive at the same

7:32

idea without without even really

7:35

without even meaning to but it's just

7:37

the rep it's the repetition things like like

7:39

underworld do that beautifully yeah beautiful

7:42

exactly yeah yeah and there's obviously

7:45

tiny echoes of of underworld

7:48

or not even underworld but like just just

7:50

the timbo style and fast yeah it's fast

7:53

like yeah that's the thing a lot of people when

7:55

they're trying to create a motion and dance music

7:58

understandably and rightfully fall in between 120 and

8:00

about 128. That's what, 135? Yes, it's fast, yeah. And I guess it's all, yes,

8:09

all just like analog drum machines and distortion

8:13

and, you know, it's

8:16

just vibe and not so much thinking.

8:18

Which I think, you

8:21

know, someone like me, I think I

8:23

can I can overthink and so

8:26

a lot of the music on this record is, you

8:30

know, it happened quite quickly and it's not really that

8:32

overwrought, you know. Is that

8:34

why we're listening to what is effectively the closest

8:37

thing to a club record

8:39

that you've made in a while? Definitely. I mean,

8:41

I don't think I've ever made a club record apart

8:43

from CMYK

8:46

and, you know, stuff that was designed

8:48

for that completely. But this is, this sort of isn't

8:51

really designed for the club, particularly.

8:53

I mean, it's sort of just designed to be, to

8:56

sound good loud. And I think

8:59

it's like, I

9:01

think some of my favorite electronic music

9:04

has come around from people

9:06

who are really plugged into a certain

9:08

scene. But then also some of it's come

9:10

from people who are completely detached

9:12

from scenes altogether. And I

9:15

think, you know, living

9:17

in LA for eight years, it's kind of like not

9:20

been, you know, I've not been plugged into

9:22

a London clubbing thing for a long

9:25

time, apart from when I pop up there and stuff.

9:27

And obviously, I still have friends who play

9:30

there. But I don't think it has any bearing on how

9:32

you are respected or

9:35

received within the scene. But I

9:37

acknowledge your point about, for

9:39

one reason or another, separating

9:42

yourself from it geographically.

9:45

There's lots of reasons to move to LA. But

9:48

was to some degree, do you think even looking back

9:50

on it now that this is a subconscious part of this whole

9:53

experience that has been by design, that

9:55

in a way, you are happier

9:57

when you're not playing nice in this

9:59

scene? Sam Pitt with everybody else. Yeah,

10:02

I mean, I was always like that really. I mean, I sort

10:04

of, I don't know, I

10:06

would be kind of shopping

10:09

my beats to DJs at like, you

10:11

know, various clubs,

10:14

club nights and stuff. And I'd hope

10:16

that they would play them. And

10:19

when they did, it was always a great feeling. But the music

10:21

always just sounded so different from the

10:23

rest of the set. It was a blessing

10:25

and a curse, really, because obviously it

10:28

just doesn't fit. And that's

10:31

good when you want to do something, when they want to do

10:33

something different. Very often they would end on it. All

10:39

DJs and anyone deep with club culture knows

10:41

that you either end on a song because

10:43

it's like peak of the night, I'm sending you home

10:45

with a big smile on your face, or you're doing someone

10:48

a solid. Yeah, you end the tune

10:50

because it's your mate. So I think maybe they

10:52

just, yeah, it was like a pity party. God

11:00

bless it though. God bless that pity party. Absolutely.

11:03

Imagine if everyone had decided that it's like

11:05

an episode of Black Mirror. There's a parallel universe

11:07

with James Blake songs, like

11:10

the Swedish House Mafia or something, like the biggest

11:12

tunes of every single night. And you're miserable.

11:14

You're sitting behind the DJ booth on your

11:17

13th bottle of high level tequila.

11:20

Everyone's just like taking selfies with you. Your

11:23

hair's different. You're wearing different

11:25

leather trousers. You're wearing leather

11:27

trousers, obviously. You've got your shirt,

11:30

at least three buttons lower than it is right now. It's kind of low

11:32

right now. And you know,

11:35

there is another universe where James Blake

11:38

is the peak era, the

11:40

peak of the night. Yeah, I

11:42

mean, it's a, in the multiverse,

11:45

I'm sure there's one. Influencers.

11:50

Yeah. It'd

11:52

be me. Oh my God, this event is so rad.

11:55

This, this event is so rad.

11:57

Who's playing? Who cares? I just love the event.

12:27

It's

14:00

like just annoying. Just an annoying

14:02

sound. I was like, yeah, fair. I mean, to someone

14:04

who doesn't have any, to someone who

14:06

doesn't have any connection with that kind of music, it

14:08

probably just sounds like crazy for him. Well, on

14:11

my comments, when I put up the thing,

14:15

someone was like, was like,

14:17

are you sure this is James Blake? And

14:19

everyone's just like, he

14:21

was a dubstep producer before a singer, and

14:24

like, you've exposed yourself as a new fan. And

14:26

then someone was like, people in the comments, not real James

14:28

Blake, because I don't know, we can do it all. And it's

14:30

like the amount of people that came out there were just like.

14:33

I got people, real defenders

14:35

coming out of the woodwork. It was great, but hey.

14:39

It's, I didn't mean it because division

14:42

amongst the YouTube comments. Of course you

14:44

did. I mean, Big Ham, it's hardly.

14:46

No, I did, I did. Of course you did. It's not like you

14:48

didn't open the door. If it goes lightly, be like,

14:50

is anybody out there? You fucking kicked

14:53

it off its hinges. It was designed to be subversive.

14:56

It was designed to make sure that when

14:58

people wouldn't know what the fuck the album

15:00

sounded like. And the next

15:03

tune that I'm dropping called Loading is

15:05

With My Voice. Although when you

15:07

first hear it, I like a lot of people don't know it's me

15:09

singing, but it is. I love that though. You

15:12

have mastered the ability

15:14

to make yourself sound like many

15:17

different people and it's awesome. And

15:19

I know how beautiful your voice

15:22

is and everybody does now, how beautiful your voice is naturally

15:24

and when it's just without all effects and everything

15:27

else like that. But

15:29

when you are kind of processing your vocals

15:31

in a way and trying to kind of design

15:34

a collaborative experience almost

15:37

a feeling that you're not alone, is

15:39

it that deep? Like, is it like

15:42

I'm looking to create something that, I'm

15:45

looking to create a connection artistically

15:47

even though I'm only here on

15:50

my own. Yeah, it's definitely a way to

15:52

have features without

15:54

having to deal with people's

15:56

egos. Yeah. But

15:59

it's a way. separating me from

16:01

the

16:02

vocal I'm listening to so that I can

16:04

then treat it like

16:07

shit. Basically I can do

16:09

whatever I want rather than it be

16:11

this precious thing. It's like when

16:13

I'm dealing with my own vocal I always

16:16

feel this kind of, it's like

16:19

everything that surrounds it then has to

16:21

kind of match the identity of me and

16:23

the vocal and sometimes that's prohibitive but

16:26

when I'm pitching my vocal around it's just you

16:28

know then the beat can be any way. Yeah.

16:31

The chords can be any way, the vibe can be any way,

16:33

it just totally changes it. Given that you primarily

16:35

work on your own I know you have a couple of people you work with there's

16:37

a co-producer in Elements on this record and stuff but do

16:39

you ever sort of, do you still suffer from a crisis and

16:41

confidence? Do you still suffer from moments when

16:44

you've lost touch with your inner

16:46

voice and you're just kind of like well I'm having

16:49

a bit of an out-of-body experience because I'm in my own creative process

16:51

here. Yeah well I get sick of my own voice

16:53

for a start. I mean that's the

16:55

thing I just seem to be on all my own songs

16:58

gets quite boring. For you? For me

17:00

yeah because obviously there's so many more songs

17:02

that aren't coming out as the most

17:04

people are waiting you know if they're a fan of mine they're

17:07

waiting two years for me

17:10

to bring out a new song. You

17:12

know for me it's like there's just constant

17:14

songs of mine floating around and I tend

17:17

to have to listen to them a lot because I'm producing them. Yeah.

17:20

So yeah you do get sick of your own voice but

17:22

at the same time I think

17:25

my confidence has grown recently. I think this album

17:27

is actually like the

17:30

most confident I've been putting an album out

17:32

for quite a long time because it's not

17:34

trying to be good at anything

17:38

you know it's like well I feel like with Friends that Break Your Heart

17:40

I was kind of trying to be good at songwriting and kind

17:43

of in anything a little bit the same.

17:46

There was a lot of like pursuit

17:48

of something great

17:51

that I didn't have yet and

17:55

kind of almost a you know desire

17:57

is suffering you know it's like that kind of thing of like

18:00

It's over there and it's very difficult to when

18:03

you're feeling, when you're

18:05

thinking about something in those

18:08

terms of acquiring

18:11

a skill or trying to get

18:13

to a certain imaginary spot. Well

18:16

you're immediately taking yourself out of the moment. You

18:18

are taking yourself out of the moment. Which is incredibly anxious. It

18:20

is and also you're also kind

18:23

of admitting that what you are is not enough. Good

18:25

enough right now, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also you're

18:27

going to have to be the one who judges whether or not

18:29

you made it. Yeah and actually it's funny because

18:32

those moments did end up, you know, I mean like Friends

18:34

at Break Heart was probably my best performing album

18:37

that I've put out even though it

18:39

was fourth or fifth in my career, you know,

18:42

assumed form in that probably. But

18:46

I still, I think to some extent

18:48

I felt like I was trying to convince the

18:52

art form in a way. And

18:55

I, with this it's like everything,

19:00

every skill that was required to make this record

19:02

was already there. It's dawning on me now, it's

19:04

not a solo record. It's

19:07

an album you've made with all of the people who put

19:10

these analog synths together, these modular synths together

19:12

that gave you these really cool ideas

19:15

and the starts of something. A

19:18

lot of the musicality that ultimately informs

19:20

the songwriting is already flowing

19:22

through these machines, these robots you talk

19:24

about. Yeah, I mean it's like I probably

19:27

owe more to like IntelliJel who

19:29

make this Metropolis sequencer

19:31

than I do to Stevie Wonder

19:33

on this album, do you know what I mean? Whereas

19:35

on other albums there were influences

19:37

that just went all the way through

19:39

like others. But

19:42

this is, the machines

19:44

definitely spoke for me in a lot of this and

19:47

the kind of, the way

19:49

of creators, you know, there's a lot of talk about AI and

19:51

stuff. But you know, generative music's been around a long

19:53

time. I'm way less worried about

19:56

the arts, or music I should say, more

19:58

specific than I am about other things. No,

20:00

I'm with you because to some degree as

20:02

you said we've been relying upon

20:04

these Predestined

20:07

kind of presets and everything else

20:10

for a long time I mean it's one of the great creative

20:12

gifts to the modern era is the analog

20:14

and modular sense Because they

20:17

ultimately gave you a template upon

20:19

which to build Copyright free.

20:22

Yeah, and AI is gonna open up a lot of possibilities

20:24

for Composition too. I think

20:27

there's a lot of very exciting things going

20:30

on with it. For example, there's this one guy Who

20:34

creates a? Synth called sin

20:36

plant which is a good thing where you can put

20:38

in any sample say it's a sound of me going

20:40

Yeah, and it will the synth

20:43

worst thing you ever done with your voice in my presence by

20:45

the way Like

20:49

that like a warm-up type thing

20:55

That They

20:59

should be able to do tunes I Should

21:03

be able to do it like the okay corral. Yeah. Anyway,

21:05

so something like that like a sound and

21:08

then the synth would Recreate that

21:10

sound on a synth it magically it

21:12

just does it you don't have to do anything. That's cool.

21:15

Yeah, it's amazing It's like, you know, you could just

21:17

imagine a thing and it just can be there That's

21:20

not you know We don't have that if

21:22

you want to do that now you got a citizen

21:24

and like you know how to use it figure it So

21:27

there's gonna be a lot of people who can make music who

21:29

weren't previously able to in the ways that they

21:31

want to I think it's really interesting. But

21:33

at the same time obviously as

21:36

with every new technology it creates

21:39

Lack too again, I think with

21:41

I think with the music side of things You

21:45

know me my principles are all simple. I go where the artist

21:47

goes. Mm-hmm And it served me really

21:49

well in my life Mm-hmm If I've ever tried to chase

21:51

an audience or do something that I feel

21:53

to go into a room where people are I fail I

21:56

mean, I I'd fall flat on my face before

21:58

I even get to the door. Mm-hmm wherever the

22:00

artist goes that's where I'm gonna

22:02

go. And so my feeling is that you will

22:05

inform us how you want to use it

22:07

within an environment that is comfortable for you.

22:10

And in your case it may be using that synth, what's it called

22:12

again? Oh a synth plant. Yeah.

22:14

For other people it may be just like Grimes or I

22:17

think she's hinting at this, the idea of like putting her

22:19

in that name Warhol style on

22:21

a piece of art that someone else has made and she's like, it

22:23

sounds like me and I stand by it and I didn't lift a finger on

22:25

it but cool, what's the difference between that and... Yeah, she

22:28

democratized herself. Right, exactly. Which is

22:30

an interesting and new way

22:32

of thinking about artistry. I think we'd expect

22:34

nothing less from someone like her to do that, you know

22:36

she's very much at the forefront of thinking different but I

22:38

think if she's cool with that I'm cool

22:40

with that. As long as she's making

22:44

money out of it, I'm fine with that. And she's cool with it, she stands

22:46

by it, she sees an artistic merit to that experience.

22:49

I'm okay with it. And so once I figured out, because

22:51

everyone was asking me I'm sure alongside you

22:53

and anyone else who's kind of makes music their life outside

22:55

of family and friends like what about the AI thing, once

22:58

I kind of figured out my position on it at least in 2023, which was

23:02

if the artists are comfortable using it and

23:05

use it in a way that makes them comfortable I'm okay

23:07

with it. If someone decides to come out there and sell

23:09

me a Drake record that Drake isn't on and Drake doesn't

23:11

like it, go fuck yourself. Absolutely and

23:13

it's about making sure that the artists are enumerated.

23:16

I mean that's what I intend to... It's

23:18

not a game. I just want to, you know, take

23:21

part in making sure that

23:23

it doesn't end up creating

23:25

music in people's likenesses

23:28

that

23:30

are sold without their kind

23:33

of having shares in it essentially. And

23:36

also lacks the heart and the spirit and the... What

23:38

it will lack heart and spirit anyway. But

23:41

in a lot of ways we're already existing in a world where what's

23:44

considered that the framework of that has been removed anyway,

23:46

it's much deeper now in a different way. What

23:48

I mean is like, you know, I want

23:50

to hear the artist stand by it. Like people say to me, are

23:52

you worried about interviews happening in AI cutting

23:54

you out? No, because they'll be too good. My

23:57

interviews are at times... really

24:00

fucking shit and annoying and that makes what

24:02

makes the good parts good it's gotta have the both

24:04

it's gotta have the... They haven't trained... I

24:07

don't know I don't think they've trained an AI to emulate

24:10

a New Zealand accent We'll be the last on the

24:12

list We always are It's just...

24:14

it's too nuanced So nuanced Even

24:17

the way I just said that Nuanced Nuanced

24:22

True We're always the last... I mean in this

24:24

case it might be good Maybe we'll be the last bastion

24:26

of humanity

24:27

Down under Yeah

24:29

Who'd have thought?

24:30

Go on mate! True Yeah

24:34

True, yeah AI

24:36

will confuse you for Australians Just

24:38

as bad as any Uber driver That'd be more offensive

24:41

to me than almost anything else Yeah Not

24:43

because they're not like Australians Unless there's a game

24:46

on in which case I do not like Australians

24:48

Right, of course But because our accents

24:50

are to New Zealand is very different and to Australians

24:52

very different But to all

24:54

of you fine folk around the world We're

24:57

one and the same and we're just not Do you hear

24:59

the way I said? Of course they are Yeah, it's very

25:01

patronising So I didn't mean it to sound patronising It's

25:03

actually... they are very different Not

25:08

least because of the way you say your eyes in words

25:10

Thank you Which is very

25:13

nuanced I forgot Well I forgot

25:15

how successful you are down under as well I spent a lot

25:17

of time down there I love it Yeah Well

25:19

we love you

25:20

Thank you Is there anywhere in the world that you're not...

25:23

you can't play? In terms of like... I'm not

25:25

sure there's anyone... Anywhere I'm hated

25:29

I think... Your

25:31

data shows that you... Yeah People

25:33

actively avoid your music They

25:37

leave the bar when it comes on There's

25:39

places where there's no listeners Like where? Like

25:43

you think it wants to be Where

25:47

do you have zero engagement?

25:52

It's like... This

25:54

is so funny with the idea of you showing

25:57

up and nobody going I don't

25:59

think anyone in our... Iceland is out of me. That's

26:03

not fair. I

26:06

don't think they have. That

26:08

is not fair on Iceland. I think it's

26:10

just Bjork that knows who I am. That

26:14

is the idea of you showing up in Iceland. No

26:16

one gets fucked. No. Alright,

26:21

well, we've got work to do then. Mm-hmm. There

26:23

was a time when I went to Ireland. I mean, I,

26:25

you know, I love Ireland so much.

26:28

But I went to a

26:30

festival. It was

26:32

on a particularly bad run, bad festival

26:34

run, where I was putting up, I was put on all

26:37

the wrong lineups, basically. Right. And

26:40

I played this festival in Ireland and... Who

26:42

else was that? Hosea was

26:44

the headline act, and he was on at the same time

26:46

as us. Right. So you can imagine Hosea

26:49

in Ireland. Yeah. We

26:51

went out and I was like, I was backstage just going

26:53

like, doing my general like, okay,

26:56

cool, so I can, you know, stretching,

26:59

like, just getting, you know, getting older and stuff. Yeah,

27:01

yeah. Getting ready for what

27:03

was, you know, like, what I was hoping was going

27:05

to be a great festival show. Anyway, the music starts playing,

27:07

you know, the intro, walk out music,

27:09

and we're like, right, let's go. I'm going

27:12

to kill this. Walk out. There's

27:15

no second row. It's

27:19

one row. And

27:22

then, and we're in, by the way, John, imagine John

27:24

Piltenk's size. Yeah, it's like, seven thousand compared.

27:27

Yeah.

27:28

Oh, gosh. Now,

27:29

looking out, and there's like a couple,

27:32

some people picking up plastic. Plastic

27:35

cups. Closing up for the night.

27:38

No, seriously, they're like, God, let's just use

27:40

this James Blake set to make sure we can keep this tent

27:42

clean. Because

27:44

they can finally see all of the

27:47

shit on the floor that everybody's left. So that

27:49

was, yeah, that was, that was, that

27:52

was really genuinely a low point. The

27:54

last DJ said I ever did, I mean, I've

27:56

done them since sporadically, but when I was touring.

27:59

Right. Before I came to Apple in LA,

28:01

it was like, to me and my team working on

28:03

DJing, this was the end of the era, was

28:05

at the Oxford Academy, and I

28:07

pulled up, and my tour manager went in and

28:10

he came out for 10 minutes later, he went, yeah,

28:12

it's upstairs now.

28:13

And

28:15

I went up there and it was the same, it was like 12

28:18

people at the front, and

28:21

at least you can disappear into your piano. I'm

28:24

up on decks trying to get 12 people to put their

28:26

hands in the air. That's the last DJ set you

28:28

did. Really? Well,

28:30

yeah, on that run, I did

28:33

a festival on New Zealand, even in front of New Zealand, headlined

28:35

after the fireworks just played at midnight in front of 20,000 people triumphant

28:39

returning to my home country. My agent was

28:41

like, let's put a couple more on, yeah, just a couple

28:43

months, put a couple more on. I

28:45

was like, yeah, sure. And it all just fucking

28:47

fell off a cliff. I did a show recently with Don Toliver,

28:50

and it was a Rolling Loud festival.

28:53

Yeah, it was just after we spoke. Yeah.

28:55

And you were wondering how that was going to go, because you were basically in your pajamas

28:58

when I saw you, and you were like, yeah, I'm going to Rolling Loud later.

29:00

I was like, well, you better fucking change. Yeah, right. Well,

29:03

I did. And

29:05

I might as well not have. I was

29:08

backstage as he started his show, and

29:13

we'd not rehearsed anything. So it was just

29:15

a matter of just walking out and doing the thing, doing

29:18

my verse. And anyway, I had the, my

29:20

in-ear monitors, I got some generic ones. Basically,

29:22

they gave me some like headphone things,

29:24

right? So immediately, the things

29:27

like got caught on my clothes, it's tugging.

29:29

So if I walk, my

29:32

next book being thrown back like that. So

29:34

I can barely really like, you

29:36

know, I can't really move around that much. So I'm

29:38

feeling very stiff. So

29:41

anyway, he starts our song together,

29:43

and he doesn't introduce

29:45

me. So I'm like, I don't

29:48

know when to come out. It's like one of the first times he's done

29:50

this show, and he's going amazing, but he's in

29:52

it. So he gets to introduce me, and

29:54

I'm like, okay, waiting

29:57

for my moment.

31:33

there

32:00

because it just felt... I mean to be

32:02

honest it was still being made in a way but

32:04

you know I was finishing it up but

32:07

your reactions really gave me like

32:09

a lot of confidence and I think

32:13

previous to playing it to you I hadn't

32:16

really considered how it could

32:18

come across live and what it meant

32:20

for

32:21

the next stage of my career and in a way I'd

32:24

sort of thought of it as my

32:28

in a way like a almost like a detour to are

32:32

like what about this you know like this left

32:34

field and it actually talking

32:36

to you about it gave me the confidence in

32:39

the idea that it was actually the next James

32:41

Blake album and that it's actually my... no

32:44

this is my sound and this

32:46

is the next era and

32:49

to put more time and weight and

32:51

kind of you know investment

32:54

behind it because this

32:56

is in

32:58

my opinion like

33:00

my most natural state like

33:03

it is it's like I said no

33:05

there's no skill I didn't need to

33:07

acquire any skills to make it it just

33:09

happened from what

33:12

I was in that moment. I think it's how we fell in love

33:14

with you and what you do and then I think what

33:16

happened was people then you showed

33:18

this other side of you that would have been sitting

33:21

there we've talked about this many times

33:23

for me it was the BBC session where you did the Joni

33:25

Mitchell cover and overnight everyone

33:27

was like what the fuck has he been

33:29

sitting on like shit and I feel

33:31

like that then to some degree started to inform

33:34

what was possible but you're

33:37

right like and it's lovely to acknowledge

33:39

that but for me when I heard it I was like oh

33:42

this is what would have happened if that voice had

33:45

not come out as quickly as

33:47

it did yeah I think you would have just kept finding

33:49

the emotion in the robots like driving

33:52

that shit yeah I think that's true I

33:54

think that's true and you know to some extent

33:57

music is kind of like you can never really separate.

34:00

Like what you're doing

34:02

from people's reactions to it and then

34:05

how that's informing the next thing That's a beautifully

34:07

made point by the way anyone listening to that That's a

34:09

real put that in the book put that in the playbook.

34:11

Hmm anyone who says they can it You

34:15

can't not be informed. No, it's very difficult

34:18

And and even if you know, it's like we

34:20

we can't really know our true nature in that way and

34:23

so when it comes to it you

34:26

May just be a victim of Pavlovian conditioning,

34:29

you know, it's like you might just be

34:31

Getting the pal in the head when you make a certain type

34:33

of music and then just going Where's

34:36

you know that where's the next hit of sugar water? so

34:39

I think when it comes

34:41

to

34:46

Thank you, I haven't heard

34:48

that I just haven't heard it put that way before So

34:51

true if you just to still that down the

34:53

idea that Ultimately, whatever you're doing

34:55

in the present moment as much as

34:57

you want to try to separate yourself from how it's being

35:00

perceived in order To find a clear state

35:02

of being going forward it cannot not

35:04

not somehow influence your next

35:07

decision Which ultimately means you are attached to

35:09

that experience which again creates

35:11

a Pavlovian That's yeah, and that's

35:13

kind of how some kind of album how

35:16

some albums end up forming because they weren't

35:18

you know You're not in you're not making it

35:20

in a vacuum So you have to whereas I

35:22

feel like because I was making

35:24

this album alongside other

35:27

things it kind of was made in a vacuum and Because

35:30

no one really expected me to do anything. It was looking

35:32

at the puppet over here. Yeah, there was a kind

35:34

of and I guess the puppet was

35:38

coming back with scissor and the

35:40

singles from that record and the puppet was also

35:42

like it's not the same and Songs

35:46

like that which I

35:47

absolutely love but they are me attempting

35:50

songwriting in it, you know It's funny.

35:52

I actually played Rick Reuben coming back any second. He's

35:54

like

35:56

This isn't a very good song

35:59

And I had to change

35:59

it because it was at the time when I was like,

36:03

it sounds good but it's not a good song.

36:06

Rick has the most amazing ability and this really is at

36:08

his absolute core of his true

36:10

being to be able to tell you the

36:12

truth and make you say thank

36:15

you no matter how harsh it is. I

36:17

think there's something very genuine about the feedback

36:20

and also an absolute, now we know this

36:22

because he's been talking about it within his book, this

36:24

unwavering belief in his own taste which

36:27

I love. Yeah absolutely. I don't

36:29

really need a producer a lot of the time, what

36:32

I need is someone to go that's good or

36:35

it's not within your

36:37

own catalogue and over it. This

36:42

is you at your strongest or

36:45

this isn't you at your strongest and then you've got to figure

36:47

out why that is and I think Rick's great at that.

36:49

And we haven't spoken about this because it's not

36:51

really my lane but I know her as well and

36:53

we've hung out before. How

36:56

honest is Jamila about this stuff? It's funny

36:58

to say that because Jamila's a

37:01

huge part of why I made this

37:04

record because she

37:07

was always a huge fan of my early

37:09

kind of electronic stuff

37:11

and whenever

37:13

I'd go out and play live she'd love Stop What

37:16

You're Doing and Voyeur

37:18

and those moments and she was like you

37:21

have to let people see that this

37:23

is what you're also doing right now and not just

37:25

you know like you did it when you were 22 like

37:30

you've been doing it this whole time and

37:32

it's a whole side to you that people aren't seeing.

37:35

Let them see it you know because in my

37:37

mind I was like right where do you go from Friends of Breakout? You

37:40

go further down that road

37:42

and otherwise people won't connect

37:44

and it's like she was like no this

37:48

is the most quintessentially you thing

37:51

and she would know given how

37:53

you know close we are and how she

37:55

knows man it's like I hadn't

37:59

put my confidence in it. behind myself in that

38:01

way until

38:03

she

38:04

sort of

38:06

just

38:07

forced me to look at it, you know, as

38:09

a, at least, you

38:11

know, she was just at least, at least entertain

38:13

it as like these tracks you've made

38:16

that you've been playing me, but

38:18

you think they don't fit on a record. They do, you

38:20

know, and, and, and it's

38:22

going to be great. And it's going to be great live. And

38:25

actually, when you came around, you said

38:27

words to the same similar effect, you know, but

38:31

more heavily leaning into the live side, like what you

38:33

were saying about the, you

38:36

know, tell me, and

38:39

how you were like, this is an and

38:42

how Big Hammer might be the

38:44

opening notes to a show. And it's like it just,

38:48

you know, it's like watching, watching Cartier.

38:51

Did you mention car? I

38:53

didn't see the wrong now I went to the fucking for

38:55

my first show out of quarantine. It was like,

38:58

like, I'm not sure it actually ever recovered. He

39:00

went rolling loud with that kind of backdrop

39:03

and everything. It was, it was really unlike the

39:05

opening notes and like how people, how

39:08

much people knew it was about to just

39:10

be so anarchic. And like that,

39:12

it's just all you got to do is hear that fucking wake

39:14

up. So see drop. Yeah.

39:17

Right.

39:18

Yeah. Filthy. And everyone just goes

39:20

fucking

39:21

bad shit. I

39:23

mean, it blows my mind actually, while we're

39:25

just talking about opium for a second, how

39:29

I'm used to like varying sounds

39:32

can can can sort of register

39:34

in people a reaction that

39:37

is mad, but for it

39:39

to be a producer drop. That

39:45

is all you need to hear.

39:47

Yeah. And it's like someone

39:50

just triggers 20,000 40,000 60,000 people to just go

39:52

absolutely crazy. Just that

39:57

little weird.

40:02

vocal

42:00

samples but a lot of it isn't me. Whereas

42:03

this is dance music with my voice on it. And

42:06

that's new for me. That's what I

42:09

love so much. I mean before, there's obviously the before

42:11

EP but the before EP is also much

42:13

more down tempo generally than this. This

42:18

is, you know, tell me especially, it's heavy

42:21

and fast and... And then you go over

42:24

and over and over and... It's just

42:26

like, oh man, hearing you just willingly

42:28

and openly press the button. Yeah.

42:32

You know, it's like... So

42:34

if anyone listening, the button is the moment in a song

42:36

where the most obvious thing is the right thing to

42:38

do. Right. Right. The

42:41

most right thing to do. If you're leaning instinctively

42:43

into a place where you can imagine 60,000 people going

42:46

over and over, don't shy away

42:49

from it. Have the confidence that

42:51

it's the right thing to do. And then give them...

42:53

And give it to them. Give it to them. Give

42:55

it to them. Give it to them. Yeah.

42:58

It's...

43:00

Wow. It goes on a long time now, doesn't it? The

43:02

tail. I stole it from the BBC. Wow.

43:06

Yeah. That's political. Not

43:08

really. It's a fucking sound effect. At nine

43:10

years. No, just symbolically. I mean, you know,

43:12

leave the BBC, go to Apple. They would do something...

43:15

Take their bomb sound effects. Listen, mate. They

43:17

wouldn't let me take the hottest record in the world so I stole their fucking

43:19

bomb.

43:20

It's

43:22

almost the truth. Yeah. No,

43:25

we're going to keep that. I was like, well,

43:27

I'll keep that. They definitely won,

43:29

by the way. Yeah, they won. Is

43:31

there another... So another

43:34

broadcaster can't say the hottest

43:36

record in the world? Is that trademarked? I could have,

43:38

but it would have been a reach for me to go

43:40

on almost at the same time as my friend, Annie, who

43:42

is doing that slot and go, no, I've got

43:45

the hottest record. I see. Of

43:47

course, because there can only be one hottest record in the

43:49

world. Well, yeah, I mean... And it's like best

43:51

chicken, isn't it? So you can't... Can you imagine if

43:53

she'd have gone like, here's tonight's hottest record in the world, and then I

43:55

came on and was like, well, actually, I have

43:58

the hottest record. I mean, it would have been ludicrous. Yeah,

44:00

yeah, yeah. Had a successful run. You

44:03

know, should probably stay with the company.

44:06

Yeah. But I... Yeah.

44:10

I'm not mad with what I walked away with.

44:13

No.

44:13

No, no, no. I think you did well out of

44:15

it. I'm still using it. Yeah. It's

44:18

exactly the same to the effect. Exactly the same. Wow.

44:21

Yeah. Well, you used to sell that. You could sell that as

44:23

an NFT. Are we still doing it? I

44:27

don't know. Who

44:29

knows? That's going to come back and bite me

44:31

in the ass. Yeah. NFT 2.0 revolution

44:33

in three years' time. That's not going to age well. That's going

44:35

to be an NFT. What you just said and

44:37

what I just said will be an NFT. Cut that out.

44:40

Put it in the file mark, future NFTs. We'll

44:42

make a fucking fortune. I'm worried I might be an

44:44

NFT. You already are. Fuck.

44:47

In a parallel universe, you're only an NFT.

44:52

An NFT can be a frugal

44:54

thing, so... That's interesting.

44:58

That's

44:58

interesting. It can. Yeah.

45:01

Houses can be NFTs. Yeah. That's

45:03

what I'm saying.

45:04

I get it. It works. It works

45:06

for me. It's a

45:08

confusing world. The last 10 to 15

45:11

minutes of this album are profoundly moving. Thank

45:13

you for asking a question there, because I

45:15

didn't have any more banter about NFTs. That's what

45:17

I do. Yeah. That

45:20

was really sweet, thank you. That's what I do.

45:23

Yeah, it's profoundly moving. To

45:26

me, it's where the concept of the album

45:29

truly reveals itself. And I think

45:31

that it actually starts pretty human. The

45:33

album starts as like this human being finding yourself

45:36

in this place where collaborations with

45:39

artificial intelligence or predesigned

45:41

presets, things can exist. I'm

45:45

figuring this out. At the end, it's like

45:47

a fully symbiotic relationship, which

45:49

is in perfect harmony. Am

45:52

I getting that right? That's how it feels to me. Yeah.

45:56

In other words, the biggest

45:58

songs are at the top.

46:08

I can't wait for the day that you're an NFT. Well

46:13

look, for a start, the last song on

46:15

the album is effectively the

46:17

title track and so that's a reveal

46:20

in itself. And then as

46:22

I said, at the time when I heard it, those three

46:24

pieces of music almost feel like one bit of music

46:26

that's kind of flowing together as a three-part piece.

46:29

And it just feels to me like you've

46:33

found yourself more immersed in their space than

46:35

they are in yours. It feels like you are in control

46:37

at the beginning and perhaps you don't have to control the end.

46:40

Yeah, that's an interesting read

46:42

on it actually. And I think the

46:46

songs at the beginning, they

46:52

are kind of, in a way, the

46:54

sort of spiritual blueprint

46:57

of the record that

46:59

the modular

47:01

stuff and all that stuff has kind of

47:04

followed as well. Playing

47:07

Rebels Into Heaven, the actual track, kind

47:09

of sounds almost like a church

47:11

organ or

47:16

pipe organ. Which

47:18

is where the name came from. In fact, there's an Instagram

47:21

post from two years ago where

47:23

it's just this kind of modular synth and it just says,

47:28

the organist that plays robots into heaven, that

47:30

was the caption. And I said that and

47:32

then I just left it and

47:35

I just left it in

47:38

real or whatever. And then

47:40

it didn't think about it

47:42

again until I was compiling all this

47:44

stuff and then I went back to that name and

47:48

that was actually the track playing

47:50

in that video is Playing Robots

47:52

Into Heaven and that's what ended up being the last track. So

47:55

the whole thing is kind

47:57

of an exercise in spirituality

47:59

through. machines really and giving

48:02

it back to them in some way.

48:05

Because I think it's a surprise when you're a musician and

48:07

you finally, especially when you're dealing in stuff

48:09

like this, it can so

48:12

easily end up in a bunch of unusable noise for

48:16

me. But when

48:19

I got the hang of it, I was able to

48:21

create beautiful music with it and that's when,

48:23

you know, I'm kind of merely

48:25

a curator in that space, in

48:27

that moment, you know, it's spitting

48:30

stuff out and I'm just going, oh, that's good. That's

48:32

good. You know, it's not

48:35

always predictable. It can't be,

48:38

you know, it's very hard to remake

48:41

the same thing again. In

48:43

fact, maybe impossible. So

48:47

each moment that is on the record,

48:49

that is a modular jam or whatever, is

48:51

a snapshot in time, a jam

48:53

that will never be made again. And that,

48:56

I guess that kind of special to this

48:58

record, whereas a lot of other records,

49:00

there are things I could replay or there's things that could

49:02

have been made in a different way. But

49:05

this is, yeah. To your point, it's everything

49:07

that creates is it by design, both

49:10

perfect and imperfect, right? Because it's

49:12

unpracticed, it's unrehearsed, there is no discipline

49:15

to it, it just exists. Yeah, spontaneous

49:17

display of melody or sound,

49:19

sound design, rhythm, something

49:22

of that nature. And then to build something around it,

49:24

to give it life and let it breathe and find

49:26

emotion through the human experience. It's

49:28

like one of the most beautiful

49:31

examples of that, you

49:33

know, what Kraftwerk kind of ultimately began on

49:35

a mass level and others. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely

49:37

there's a long line of

49:40

people who've made kind

49:42

of human sounding music with

49:47

drum machines and synths and all sorts that

49:49

have tweaked them to

49:52

kind of be more, I mean, FX Twin

49:54

is a good example. Yeah, my brothers, I asked them about

49:56

it. I mean, they have hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and they just

49:58

literally jam. You

52:00

know, and it explains so much of like why

52:02

we can't why we're finding hard to talk to each other

52:04

in a in an empathetic way It's like

52:06

that's what these screens are Doing

52:09

whether they are designed to do that or not

52:12

um, they are doing that so that's

52:15

what sort of led me away from

52:17

screens and that's and modular synths

52:20

and and kind of hardware stuff and like

52:22

gear and that's just You know, yeah,

52:24

you could call it like a sort of like obsessive

52:26

it can be develop into an obsessive

52:28

hobby, but It's actually a very

52:31

Connective It's

52:34

way closer to bonsai and fucking

52:36

yeah, totally. It's way closer to that than it

52:39

is close to programming You

52:41

know, it's it's way closer

52:43

to Pottery

52:46

than it is to you know that

52:48

kind of intense I give you a fine brush

52:50

if I can blow it to me, but you have a cook you have

52:52

a cook it too critical Do you know what give me a fine? Can

52:56

I have it just a bit longer you don't uh,

52:58

I remove this in I We

53:01

don't even have sims anymore There's

53:03

just a couple of games on this that I do like If

53:05

I can touch this I bet what do you do with it

53:07

when I give it to you? Listen it

53:12

Get rid of it. All right

53:15

That's fucking knocking for you mate What

53:19

don't say it don't you don't you say it there's

53:21

always don't say it there's always

53:25

I Think

53:32

you should have called the album music for androids

53:35

right? Yeah Um

53:40

It's a bit over yeah, so think about bits you've

53:42

always got to walk them back Yeah, yeah,

53:45

it's like when you pretend to walk out of a room

53:47

and then you have to go back in How long do you wait out

53:49

there for? I just don't come back. Yeah,

53:51

sometimes I don't come back and then i'm like that will show you Everyone

53:53

just got on with the night and give a fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're

53:56

like, oh whatever He thinks

53:58

it's still a bit. Yeah Like

54:00

in the back of the mind of somebody who's done that Irish

54:03

exit, there's always the feeling of... I

54:05

bet they... I bet that's confused them. Yeah.

54:08

I bet they're talking about it. And no one cares. And

54:12

I think therein lies a nice way for us to pause until our next

54:14

conversation. Cool. Cool. No one cares. Catching

54:20

up with James Blake alongside many other conversations

54:22

right here on the Interview Series. If this is your first

54:24

time checking it

54:25

out, we appreciate it. There's lots to dive into. And

54:27

we'll be back again next week.