The Voice

Ghostly soul singer JAMES BLAKE came drifting out of England six years ago sounding more poltergeist than pop star. But now, after making three stellar solo albums and collaborating with everyone up through Beyoncé, a star is exactly what he’s becoming. Maybe it’s finally time to step out of the shadows

- Amanda  Petrusich

IF THE 21ST CENTURY HAS a reigning neurosis, it’s isolation. We’ll do anything to bat away the creeping sense of dread triggered by technology—but of course, to soothe ourselves, we turn to more technology. It’s hard to imagine a better musical embodiment of that paradox—of our simultaneous hunger for and fear of high-stakes connection—than 28-year old British singer, DJ, and producer James Blake. Since his full-length debut in 2011, Blake has recorded with a bucket list of visionaries (Frank Ocean, Brian Eno, RZA, Bon Iver, Chance the Rapper, Vince Staples, Rick Rubin, Beyonce…), but his articulation of contemporary anxiety feels entirely his own. He uses his fractured falsetto, a laptop, and a mess of keyboards to create spectral, yearning songs that don’t resolve in any traditional sense but instead revel in ambiguity and disconnection. They are stuttering and unmoored. This is what living feels like now, Blake’s work suggests. This is the new loneliness.

And yet the man himself has never been happier.

We meet in the corner booth of a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood; it’s the kind of joint where the nacho cheese is made of cashews and the chorizo is fashioned from tempeh. Arriving early, I stare blankly at the menu and try to figure out what “coconut bacon” is. And then, at the appointed hour, he appears: gangly (six feet six), with messy auburn hair and an easy, lopsided smile. He is wearing round mirrored sun glasses and a navy blue shirt with mustard yellow piping, and carrying a blazer. He looks less like a DJ and more like a runway model on his way to the library.