Caught James Blake‘s show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s Masonic Lodge last night, and it was impressive. Blake’s post-dubstep sound could not have been married to a better location, a symbol-riddled wood-beamed lodge nestled in LA’s most famous graveyard with a shirt-ruffling soundsystem. When Blake’s piano-led tracks kick into their rolling beats, the bass, syncopated percussion and sub-bass lines work in concert to submerge you into a murky bath of low frequency waves. The production is top notch; with his 3-man band on stage Blake supposedly doesn’t sequence any part of his set, although it was so spot on at times I find that a bit difficult to believe. With a voice that crackles somewhere between the sonic registries of Aaron Neville and Imogen Heap, Blake appropriates many covers but warps them in his own hypnotic blanket and makes them his own (Feist’s “Limit To Your Love”, James Litherland’s “The Wilhelm Scream”, Joni Mitchell’s “A Case Of You” etc). On a personal tip, I didn’t care much when Blake ventured on singing solely over piano — that territory’s been very wellworn by the Coldplays and Editors of our day. But when he works with full production, it is stunning —  do yourself a favor though, don’t even try to listen to Blake’s cavernous sonics on dinky laptop speakers, you’ll miss the whole point. Here’s the latest video to his eponymous album, the track is “Lindisfarne” and the video dropped last week. Pick up the album now on CD , iTunes or Vinyl.

One more video of James Blake’s “The Wilhelm Scream” after the Jump…