Background
Following both the critical and commercial success of Blake's self-titled debut album, Blake released both the Enough Thunder and Love What Happened Here EPs. These EPs, noticeably more structured than his previous releases, featured more R&B tinged work as opposed to the experimental electronica found on CMYK. Many reviewers speculated in the year between releases that Blake was headed in the wrong direction, with Pitchfork's Larry Fitzmaurice saying that "James Blake's reliance on piano-based singer/songwriter electro-soul perhaps played it a bit too safe, prompting comparisons to the once-outré, now-gear spinning career of fellow avant-crooner Jamie Lidell".
Blake admitted to Hot Press in an interview about Overgrown that his relationship affected the album. He said, "I can't deny it. There's no point in trying to come up with some other explanation for what I've been writing about... When it happened, I was really struck. Y'know—Suddenly I'm hit!".
Earlier in 2012, Blake spent time with American rapper Kanye West and singer Justin Vernon. Their time spent together is alleged to have affected his album as many of the soul and electronic influences of West and Vernon can be seen in the first single released from Overgrown: "Retrograde". In 2012, after months of speculation, Blake announced a new collaborative non-single release under the moniker Harmonimix. This release featured British rapper Trim and the single "Confidence Boost/Saying" was released on 24 September 2012. It was a return to form for Blake and featured the distinct characteristics present in his previous efforts (Though "Confidence Boost" has been floating around on the internet for three or four years).
During the final weeks of 2012, Blake performed three intimate shows where he debuted five of his new songs, the five being "Our Love Comes Back", "Overgrown", "Retrograde", "To the Last" and "Every Day I Ran."
Blake announced via Facebook on 7 February 2013 that his second album, Overgrown, would be released on 8 April. The first single from the album, "Retrograde", was debuted the same day on BBC Radio 1, and was released on 11 February.
In an interview with Oregon Music News on 23 September, Blake described his music as "melodic bass music" and also said that his dub influences extend both to the traditional dub music and garage music.
On 7 March, Blake and his labelmates at 1-800 Dinosaur released both the dub version of "Voyeur" and the album cut of "Digital Lion" featuring Brian Eno.
Read more about this topic: Overgrown
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