Recap James Blake gets a bigger venue, but still stays intimate at First Avenue

Though James Blake is still relatively new to the music scene, he’s been around long enough to have an already-stale argument surrounding his sound. Most long-standing Blake fans have heard the dreaded, “Yeah, but is this really dubstep?” criticism from a friend or two who are itching to prove how much they know about the much-described, London-based dance genre. As the sound—marked by dark, rattling basslines and an almost lopsided sense of rhythmic momentum—makes itself known (at least in an elemental form) everywhere from breakdowns in Britney Spears singles to the Jay-Z and Kanye West collaboration album, there’s an obvious knee-jerk reaction from those hoping to protect the sound from overkill. There has also been an unfair backlash against Blake, almost as if he should be punished for recognizing and adapting the deep, penetrating physical power of the genre to become a vessel for lyrics and vocal performances of an equally foreboding emotional intensity.

That’s all a roundabout way of saying Blake’s getting scolded for giving what’s long been a decidedly macho subculture something resembling a heart. But, if the crowd at Wednesday night’s show at First Avenue had anything to say about it, Blake seems to have tapped into something that’s arresting and—despite its haunting fog-like ethos—undeniably moving and relatable.

From ghostly opener “Unluck” to the minimalist dread of “The Wilhelm Scream,” Blake’s audience appeared to be under some sort of hypnotic spell, with nearly every set of eyes fixed squarely on Blake’s gangly, unassuming frame for the duration of the show. He was backed by a drummer and a guitarist (“mates from school,” Blake explained). Witnessing the performance was akin to watching a sculptor at work, with many songs building in texture and sound, from the ground up, through a variety of recorded vocal loops and densely layered drum blips. The most fascinating moment came early on, during “I Never Learnt To Share,” when Blake’s recording device caught audience screams on the first line of the song, which ended up getting played with each successive loop as the song went along, a little technical glitch that even managed to crack a smile out of the normally solemn Brit.

Later, Blake upped the tempo with the most bass-rattling song of the night, the Kelis-sampling “CMYK” off one Blake’s earlier EPs. It’s always going to be a funny sight watching people figure out how to dance along to dubstep without looking like drunks stumbling out of a club after last call. Blake also proved his vocal strength on his elegant cover of Feist’s “Limit To Your Love” and the stunning beauty of the vocorder-assisted “Lindisfarne,” which found Blake at his most Bon Iver-like.

It was a bit of a disappointment that Blake’s encore didn’t include his gorgeous cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” that’s apparently been already cycled out of live performances in favor of “AWD,” a largely instrumental blitzkrieg of grimy beats that lurched a little too long past the 10-minute mark and felt too impersonal to be arriving so late in the set. All was forgiven, though, when Blake finished the night with “Once We All Agree,” a piano-driven taste from his upcoming Enough Thunder EP that featured the most movingly damaged vocal performance of the night.

Unfortunately for Blake, the dubstep debate will likely plague him for the rest of his incredibly promising career, but if his stop at First Avenue proved anything, it’s largely that the debate is relatively pointless. Regardless of “authenticity,” Blake has tapped into his influences, including R&B, electronica, and, yes, dubstep, and built a sound that’s visceral, innovative, and promises to push pop music into unfamiliar waters. Who, honestly, cares what you call it?