With a smallish scattered crowd leaking in to Thebarton Theatre on a cool Thursday night for James Blake, it would seem Australian based English ex-pat and Mark Pritchard had pre-emptively decided to index the intensity of his set to the number of people in the room. Building from a slow crescendo of droney ambience to more anxious pulsating beats and synth arrangements, the set finished with rich, dense arrangements with catchier formations. The scattered manic vocal samples added to the tension with bass heavy tempo changes keeping listeners alert. Over the course of the set, the beats and samples got hookier and the audience engagement increased in proportion. One thing supports often suffer from is a lack of lighting and Pritchard was no exception. It was clear this was to create a marked difference from Blake’s set.
James Blake subdued start with Blake at 90 degrees on piano facing a multi instrumentalist, with a live drummer, complete with sample pads and probably other obscured production triggers, facing the audience in the centre of the state. The live show demonstrated how much of a difference powerful lighting makes, with the warm golden glow silhouetting the star and his very talented band mates. The carefully thought out provided the visual energy the show needed to truly pull in the audience, even when faded to near black.
Throughout the entire set, as one would expect from Blake, the performance featured entirely pristine sound, so much so that fact it’s probably not even possible to find superlatives emphatic enough to describe how good it was. Blake’s spooky, hypnotic and ethereal vocals were tempered with just the right amount of reverb and decay. The live recreation of his arrangements provided a masterclass of how to use slow beats and minimalist textures effectively. Blake and his cohorts only put into the arrangements what was absolutely required, no more and mo less. The use of live drummer made the whole experience more fresh sounding. Blake did point out that the performance featured “no laptops, no automation”, so even with the use of triggered samples, the show was as live as it could possible me.
This gig to some extent provides one microcosm of where music is in 2016 with a perfect blend of live sounds and electronica. Blake’s emotionally and achingly rich vocals, harmonised perfectly with backups or whatever vocoder type effects he had. While the set was filled with new tracks from “The Colour in Anything” there were a few inserts in the set list from “Overgrown and Self Titled”. “Retrograde” was welcomed with a warm reception and understandably sounded amazing live. The Joni Mitchell “Case of You” cover was an unexpected gem. “The Wilhelm Scream” was naturally very much expected but nevertheless warmly received song to open the encore. The amazing looped harmonies at the very end were mesmerising, save for an accidental cheer that made it into the set, the only brief respite from a breathtakingly serious performance.
