Bon Iver / James Blake Collaboration - Fall Creek Boys Choir

Since it's unofficially "Stream Music That 100 Other Bloggers Have Posted Day" here at NMC I'll just throw this up for kicks. The two met just five months ago at SXSW and have been working on this collaboration via the internet. Today they debuted the track on BBC1 and the track was up for streaming in seconds, literally. It sounds exactly how you'd expect a Bon Iver / James Blake collab to sound...auto-tuned high pitch vocals, and bleeps and bloops and slow beats with a bit of that soft rock of the 80s vibe. I don't care for it, to me it's like the worst parts or the weak points of their musical styles had bad sex, the kind where nobody gets off. So I guess I can't even call this the love child of bad sex. What do you think?

James Blake at SXSW

NPR did a video stream of James Blake's performance last night and the quality was surprisingly good. You can watch it here. He played:

Unluck

Limit To Your Love

Klavierwerke

Lindesfarne II

The Wilhelm Scream

To Care (Like You)

James Blake - Wilhelm Scream is a cover too

Wilhem Scream is a cover of James Litherland's "Where to Turn" from the album 4th Estate. I first read this on Nailer9 and although I'm sure other blogs posted about it, I want to give credit to where I first saw it. James Blake's dad just so happens to be the James Litherland. On BBC radio 1 last night this was all part of his interview which you can listen to here. Read Abeano's review on the interview here. I haven't even listened to the highly hyped album yet because I've been worried that nothing would be as great as "Wilhelm scream". But maybe James Blake's real strong suit lays in his ability to twist and bend and distort a song with such grace that it essentially becomes his own. If you take a listen to the original song below, you'll see that James Blake borrows a large chunk of the chorus but also adds some of his own lyrics. You can watch James Blake's video for The Wilhelm Scream here. What an interesting way to start the morning.

 James Litherland - Where To Turn

On the same show, James Blake also sang a cover of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You", just him and his piano. It's gorgeous. James Blake - A Case of You (Joni Mitchell Cover) (right click to download)

I don't know about my dreaming anymore...

Nothing sounds better than waking up to James Blake on a saturday morning with the snow falling outside. I play it almost every morning but something about being able to lay in bed and take it all in while still under the covers seems perfect. I have been crushing on this song hard since the day I got my hands on it. During his live BBC performance he is actually combining two songs. Put this on and you might find it hard to get out of bed.

James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream (live on BBC Radio)

His debut LP will be out February 7th through Atlas/A&M. If you like Bon Iver you should check out James Blake, who is similar but he has a few more electronic clicks here and there and creates really spacious soundscapes. His album is already being heralded as the first best album of 2011. Guess we'll have to wait and see.