James Blake – James Blake

Having wowed audiences last year with a trio of acclaimed EPs, here Londoner James Blake expands his imaginative soul hybrid over eleven full tracks, and launches himself to the fore of current developments in electronic music in the process. The album opens with Unluck – a dark procession of winding synthesiser motifs, off-kilter percussive clicks, and Blake’s broody, effects-manipulated voice – which immediately recalls the stretched and skewed soundscapes of Burial’s 2007 dubstep opus Untrue.

On I Never Learned To Share, he meditates painstakingly on a single vocal mantra, before the tune crescendos in a speaker-rattling climax of synthesisers and clattering drums. Elsewhere, I Mind and To Care (Like You) add new timbres to the dubstep canon, while Measurement and Lindesfarne I and II show Blake’s penchant for combining unnerving, minimal compositions with thick, gospel-styled vocals. Sublimely atmospheric and accomplished, this runner-up in the BBC's Sound of 2011 poll might yet prove to be the winner. [Martin Skivington]