JAMES BLAKE

Playing Robots Into Heaven (Republic)

You could subtitle his sixth LP The Changing Faces Of James Blake, as the full array of the producer’s interests and genre distortions co-exist on Playing Robots Into Heaven’s 11 tracks. After the r’nb and trap-flavoured Friends That Break Your Heart, from 2021, James Blake’s headed deep into experimental territory: if recent fans thought Big Hammer, which squashes The Bug into the grooves of an early-Warp Records bleepfest, was a departure, then He’s Been Wonderful, with its fragments of a school choir, distorted coda and Eternal Sunshine zaps, is a track that only its originator could love.

Skip that one and bear witness to James turning electronica into hymnal sounds on the closing title track; joining the confessional ranks with his torch song persona on Ad Astra; hitting a more familiar, nourishing furrow – aided by a Frippy guitar solo – subsumed in the static of Fire The Editor; shifting his voice to high pitch, then down an octave or two, on the haunting Asking To Break.

Tell Me switches between moody and giddy at the fringes of the dancefloor, and Playing Robots Into Heaven comes together to dazzling effect on Loading: skittering R&S hi-hats and a techno-friendly tempo meets choral electronics and Blake’s voice at his most winning. Its affecting chorus, “Wherever I go, I’m only as good as my mind,” befits an album of introspection-seeking wonder.

words CHRIS SEAL