Singer-songwriters are going to need to do a lot more than do their best imitation of Bob Dylan if they are going to survive through this young decade. James Blake, hotly-tipped wunderkind and the runner-up in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 poll, understands this completely. Pulling influences from such variant sources as dubstep, the twisted R’N’B sampling of J Dilla and, especially, The xx’s minimalist electronica, James Blake sees its titular author emerging as one of the UK’s brightest and most innovative young voices.

And what a voice it is. Blake’s silky smooth, soulful white boy croon is the antithesis of the bass-heavy, murky sounds that bubble beneath. Like Kanye West collaborator Bon Iver, Blake is unafraid to process his voice for dramatic effect. Unlike many radio artists, who use such effects as a crutch to hide their vocal weaknesses, Blake uses these effects to add emotional gravity to his lyrics. In “I Never Learnt to Share,” Blake sounds distant and lonely as his sparsely accompanied voice is more greatly affected by a cavernous autotune effect as he repeats the harrowing phrase, “My brother and my sister don’t speak to me, but I don’t blame them.”  

Another one of Blake’s greatest gifts is his patience as a composer. He masterfully uses silence to build tension; the music is given sufficient space to breath and shows a unique dynamic range that is hardly replicated in modern, compression-obsessed recordings. His cover of Feist’s “Limit to Your Love” showcases this perfectly, creating an immense sense of anticipation during the seconds-long periods of silence. This anticipation is brought to relief by a speaker-rattling bass, one of the best sounds on a record chock full of great ones.

From the jazzy chords that open lead track “Unluck” to the dense harmonies that close out “Measurements,” James Blake proves itself to be an electronic record with soul, a hard-to-find gem in a genre rife with gaudy production and emotional emptiness. Will this record lead to a scene-wide change in the way songwriters approach electronics? God, I hope so.

A+