shut up and listen

• vocals only – heavy autotune manipulations
• (reminiscent of imogen heap’s ‘hide and seek’)
• longest lyrics on the album so far
• some electronics (sweeping phaser?) at the end
• leads in to part 2…

KEY IDEAS to plunder

1. solo vocals
2. ringing phasing effect

1. unconventional song structures
2. multiple layers of vocals and overt electronic manipulation
3. sparse, minimal materials yet result is rich
4. lyrically economical – often a single line is repeated for an entire song. non-narrative lyrics
5. use of electronics yet still highly emotive – coldly modern yet traditionally emotive at the same time
6. extreme bass

01 ‘Unluck’ – James Blake – James Blake

• begins with solo vocal
• single repeated lyric/melody line
• first repeat adds a harmony
• second repeat adds a second harmony
• organ enters halfway through the above
• distorted, bubbling organ (almost soloing) turns into chords
• bass enters next time around
• vox repeats stop leaving kik/snr/hat (all one the beat) plus offbeat finger click, delayed organ
• vox returns with rim shot
• vox harmonies repeat in a round
• organ and bass get busier, melodic runs
• last line is repeated, overlapped while organ goes crazy ascending (out of key on the way)
• plateaus into a 3 chord loop, tremelo-ing
• vox drop out
• drums stop
• organ fades

KEY IDEAS to plunder

1. crescendo plateaus into loop
2. single line repeated but with gaps and last paraphrase repeats

• single lyric/melody line repeated – with slight variations in text
• 10 x 9 bar measures – the first section has no vox.
• the 11th and final measure is only 7 bars
• vox flutters from left to right rapidly
• big reverb on the vox
• big crescendo of ‘noise’ begins at the 5th section and ends at the 11th (outro)
• 1st: long organ chords and kik/snr intro
• 2nd: vox
• 3rd: counter melody + ‘drain’ percussive hit with reverb
• 4th: vox harmonies
• 5th: noise begins to creep in
• 6th:
• 7th: drums drop out – heavy bass
• 8th: kik back in
• 9th: opening hi hat in – gets ducked by kik
• 10th: closed hi hat ticking in – combines with ducked open hat
• 11th(outro): drums except kik drop out, noises dies away, vox loses verb

KEY IDEAS to plunder

1. overall structure with noise crescendo
2. single melody/lyric line repeated

• intro consists of organ, kik/snr + noise as one beat (offbeat) per bar
• chord structure = A B / A B / C D / C E /
• drums drop out for bars 7 & 8
• then drums return with vox and hi hat
• poly-rhythmic hi hat
• vox doubled in wide stereo + harmonies later
• two lines of lyric repeated – last word overlaps with first word
• enormous organ volume swell almost drowns track out
• overall track switches between 2 parts – swelling organ AND suddenly muted organ
• drums drop out, organs dies away, last word is cut suddenly

KEY IDEAS to plunder

1. overlapping lyric – almost a round
2. poly rhythmic hi hat