FEATURE:
Revisiting…
James Blake - Friends That Break Your Heart
_________
HAVING recently…
PHOTO CREDIT: Josh Stadlen
turned thirty-five, I have been thinking about James Blake’s music. The U.K.-born, U.S.-based producer and artist released his Mercury Prize-winning second studio album, Overgrown, in 2013. That celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this year. His most recent album, Playing Robots into Heaven, came out last month to widespread acclaim. I wanted to use this feature to spotlight his previous studio album, Friends That Break Your Heart. Released on 8th October, 2021, I was keen to look back a couple of years. At a time when we were still in the pandemic but there was a shaft of light ahead, it must have been a strange time to release an album. I think we get a different perception and flavour of them listening now compared to when they came out. Even so, Friends That Break Your Heart was met with applause and kudos. I will come to a couple of those reviews. Reaching number four in the U.K., and with his partner Jameela Jamil as one of the producers, Friends That Break Your Heart is a brilliant album from one of our finest and most consistent artists. In August 2021, CLASH interviewed James Blake from Los Angeles. At a time of lockdown, confusion and a strange new time, it was interesting getting this insight into the life and music of an artist who had relocated and was in a public and high-profile relationship with a huge name in broadcasting and acting:
“When Clash is patched through to James Blake there’s an immediate burst of energy in the songwriter’s voice. An Englishman abroad, he’s talking to us on the morning after England’s defiant defeat to Italy in the final of the European Championships. Having relocated to Los Angeles some five years before, he’s itching to discuss the game, and his enduring pride in Gareth Southgate’s young squad. “I think that they’re heroes,” he gushes. “They represent a huge step forward, culturally speaking.”
Living in America full-time has triggered a shift in the way James Blake interprets his own Englishness. “It’s definitely highlighted more. I am very English in contrast with what’s around me,” he says. “But you know, Englishness is a complex thing. It’s a multitude of different cultural reference points and identifications.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Tyrone Delaney
There’s a subtle confidence to James Blake’s voice as he chats to Clash. He appears comfortable in his own skin – slim, tanned, and wearing one of the many colourful shirts that have bedecked his IG Live sessions, our conversation moves from UK rap to classic British comedy such as Monty Python in the blink of an eye. He’s eager to talk – whether that’s Marcus Rashford (“just an exemplary person”) or his now-compete new album, the pace rarely lets up.
In a way, it’s the energies of lockdown propelling him forwards. While he’s the first to discuss the traumas of the past 12 months, James Blake is also keen to assert the deep sense of emotional evolution that has come over him, something that permeates our conversation and ultimately defines his new album ‘Friends That Break Your Heart’. “The lockdown triggered a seismic shift in my personality,” he says. “I dropped a lot of things that were holding me back, in terms of insecurities and worries. I think it allowed me to be more creative. It’s a myth that when you get more mentally ill, your music gets more creative – that is never how it’s been with me. It’s always been… if I’ve had a breakthrough, mentally, then I had a breakthrough musically. I guess that kind of happened last year, and into this year.”
2019’s astonishing ‘Assume Form’ garnered incredible reviews, with James Blake’s intense artistry augmented by some stunning collaborations. Touring across the world in support, the songwriter’s itinerary was wiped clean by COVID. “My social skills really took a dive!” he laughs. “It definitely took a huge toll on my mental health, not being able to play shows and having a huge part of my identity put on hold. But I had to work it out and come to some other understanding of myself that wasn’t predicated on only this thing, that I do.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Tyrone Delaney
Being forced to look inwards, he argues, opened him up to re-focusing on aspects of his life that he had neglected. “It’s forced us to prioritize our own mental health,” he says. “I think it’s something that a lot of musicians are prone to. A lot of us come from unpredictable home lives or situations where we’re placating others, and we ultimately become used to prioritizing others over ourselves. A lot of us are very vulnerable to industry power, because of that.”
The path to this kind of self-awareness hasn’t been easy. We chat a little about the previous Clash cover story James Blake took part in, a conversation around his debut album, and the EPs which preceded it. He’s used this passing decade to build a singular catalogue, one that recontextualized club tropes within a shocking personal musical landscape, resonating between poles as disparate as the nebulous post-dubstep nexus of his debut LP and the glorious Catalonian pop of Rosalia that erupts from ‘Assume Form’ highlight ‘Barefoot In The Park’. “I’d like to think that I’m always looking forward,” he insists, “but I think that it’s important – just like history in general – to look back and say: what did I get right and what did I get wrong?”
“It’s building on top,” he insists. “We naturally evolve as people, and our scenarios – and hopefully the context of our lives – change as we’re evolving.”
‘Friends That Break Your Heart’ is the latest junction on this ongoing journey. Soulful, lucid, and profoundly honest, it finds James Blake re-adjusting his connections with the world around him. “The album is not love song heavy,” he is at pains to point out. “It’s coming to terms with lots of different types of relationships – whether that’s friendships or professional types of relationships, or whatever – and reflecting on them, and reflecting on myself and my position, I guess, in the world. How I felt about myself, during lockdown. The dangers of comparing yourself to other people, worrying about, ‘have I done enough?’ Have I achieved my potential?”
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Tyrone Delaney
“I live in Los Angeles, so there are plenty of people to compare yourself to!” he laughs. “It’s about coming to peace with the way you are, even if that’s not exactly where you plan to be. That’s a realisation that many people have to come to, regardless of situation. I’d say it’s a heavy record that sounds lighter. It’s a paradox. When you hear it, you’ll know what I mean.”
He’s conscious of people reading the album through a lens of his most prominent, most public relationship. “Jameela actually asked me to write an album that had nothing to do with her,” he says with a chuckle; “so, here it is! It’s called ‘Friends That Will Break Your Heart’ and it really is about that.”
If lockdown prompted a turn towards introspection, it also released James Blake from outside commitments. “I stopped thinking about other people, to be honest. I stopped thinking about the world, in terms of a musical perspective. I started thinking about the world in other ways. I was making music purely for my own catharsis, really, and that’s a very pure way of writing.”
James Blake shared an At Home playlist for Apple Music last year, one that seemed to parallel his creative thinking; fantastically chilled, it covered the folk-soul of Terry Callier and the abstract electronics of Floating Points. The emphasis, it seemed, was on sound in its purest form – sonics as a means of emotional communication, as well as aural delight”.
The reviews were hugely positive for Friends That Break Your Heart. You can get this phenomenal album on silver vinyl if you are a fan of James Blake and have not heard the album in a while – or you have but want it on a physical format. In their review, this is what CLASH had to say about an album they had heard about recently via their interview with Blake:
“In a recent interview with Clash, James Blake explained how lockdown saw him recenter and reset all his insecurities in light of a larger crisis. It marked another improvement in his career-spanning journey towards finding equanimity, most recently with 2019’s 'Assume Form' and its journey breaking free of the mental turmoil he once swam in. Now romantically self-assured, 'Friends That Break Your Heart' navigates the throes of the affecting friendships in his life. From that design brief, he has created an ethereal alternative to the cavernous Assume Form.
The stillness of ‘Famous Last Words’ puts full focus on Blake’s lyrics, aptly ushering in his most songwriting-focused project yet. Moreover, it’s his least jagged project, with a pastel atmosphere gently shading around songs. For the James Blake fan who prefers his more abstract electronic tracks, this one may, in fact, break your heart – though those ideas aren’t completely scrubbed off.
Ever the mad conductor, he still manages to sweep electronics through even the most cloudy of instrumentals. It pops up in the gulps of acid bass on ‘Coming Back’ and especially ‘I’m So Blessed You’re Mine’ – a James Blake cocktail of technicolour arpeggios, glassy chords and wordless harmonies to sonically illustrate joy in the presence of an amazing person.
Lyrically, James is reacting to seeing friendships fray, either with heartbreak, fatigue, pleading or acceptance. Explaining these situations is less descriptive than simply showing Blake’s singular lines that sharply sums them up. “It was built in a day, so it fell in a day / What do you expect?” on Foot Forward. “We both swam out to sea / you lost me willingly” on ‘Life Is Not the Same’, which is a highlight despite Take A Daytrip’s production tag being crassly shoved in just before verse #1.
‘Lost Angel Nights’ wrestles with feelings of envy and fears of being replaced, while a couple of duets offer two perspectives: ‘Coming Back’ with SZA and the touchingly despondent ‘Show Me’ with Monica Martin. In each, Blake is caught in a tangled web of thoughts and feelings, dealing with a fallout with lines that violently switch between ego-driven impulses and a longing to reconcile.
Note that most songs here can be applied to a romantic partnership, the same emotional push-and-pull still exists. Though the narrative is not as clear-cut as Assume Form, Friends That Break Your Heart expounds on the similarities between romantic and platonic relationships. And, by extension, their equal worth.
The LP’s home stretch is up there with Blake’s best, not just in the tense penultimate title track and wet-cheeked closer ‘If I’m Insecure’, but on the lead single. ‘Say What You Will’ shows off the magic trick Blake’s perfected by now. Vocally, he’s unsettlingly beautiful.
8/10”.
I will end up with a review from DIY. They had some interesting observations and takeaways from one of the strongest albums from 2021. It is one that I would urge people to seek out and listen if they have not heard it recently. Friends That Break Your Heart is one of Blake’s best albums. One that rewards repeated listens – and yet I do not heard many songs from it played on the radio:
“Laid over his trademark minimalist production, James Blake battles with his insecurities on the tentatively optimistic ‘Funeral’. “I feel invisible in every city,” he remarks on this familiar feeling. “Don’t give up on me,” he pleads, before promising that “I’ll be the best I can be”. It’s this journey through self-doubt that underpins his fifth studio album, one that ultimately looks to celebrate the self regardless of wider influence. It’s a mantra that reaches its fittingly melancholic climax on the painfully retrospective title track. “In the end it was friends who broke my heart,” he offers in his distinct tone.
Yet there’s freedom in James’s realisations, unfolding on a record that simultaneously expands on his delicate production and sees him fully embrace his singer-songwriter alter ego. The SZA-featuring ‘Coming Back’ sits alongside ‘Frozen’ as his most assured foray into new genres. The latter part of the record elevates his vocal delivery, as ever paired with considered electronic flourishes. ‘Show Me’, featuring Monica Martin, is among his most beautiful work to date. His shifts in sound are as delicate as his music, continuing to showcase his ability to blur styles with unparalleled precision.
It provides the space for him to take on these insecurities head on. The tellingly-titled ‘If I’m Insecure’ finds salvation in love. It lands on both resignation and acceptance, that it’s OK to be lost and found at the same time. This blissful resignation runs throughout ‘Friends That Break your Heart’. “I know I’ll be replaced,” he laments at the album’s midpoint before cementing the record’s driving force. “I put my best foot forward,” he affirms, “what else can I do?”.
The remarkable and always-brilliant James Blake crafted something rich and nuanced with Friends That Break Your Heart. Richly making the top forty albums of 2021 in many critical lists, and recorded between The Green Building (Los Angeles, California) and No Idle Campus (Los Angeles, California), everyone should clear some time to enjoy and dive into James Blake’s fifth studio album. It was another exceptional release from…
ONE of our very best.