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LISTEN: James Blake - 'At Birth'
The Quietus , November 22nd, 2011 07:16

Another cut from new R&S EP emerges online; sees Blake returning to woozy dancefloor territory - hurrah!

James Blake's new EP, Love What Happened Here, is due for release through R&S at the start of December. We've already posted a link to listen to the title track, which revisits the cracked, woozy R&B of his CMYK EP.

The other two tracks have now turned up online as well. First, 'At Birth', ripped from a show on Belgium's Radio Scorpio. And it's something of an understated gem, returning to the delightfully heady, introspective dance music that made his earlier releases so exciting. Not the slightest drop of blubstep within earshot - listen here.

'Curbside', again ripped from the radio, is even more lopsided. A further step onward from his Hemlock material (debut 'Air & Lack Thereof', the grainy minimalism of this year's 'Order'), it has something of dubstep's loping motion, but torn into shreds. Again his voice is present, but rather than the limp, semi-structured whine of his singer-songwriter material, it's left wordless, a fleck of human warmth on an otherwise stark, alien listen (stream below).