‘Trying Times’ is James Blake’s first album since going independent

“I think what makes a good rollout is the right songs get the love they deserve,” James Blake said, over a Friday evening call. He’s in the midst of yet another album rollout, one of many in his storied career.

It’s the part artists can dread, but he doesn’t seem to have too much of a problem with it.

“I’ve really built up a community … it feels like I know the people I’m delivering this record to,” he continues. “It’s shown up in the metrics; we just sold a U.K. run out in under a minute, sold out the f— New York show in pre-sale. … I’ve never done that before.”

“To be honest, it’s kind of emotional for me, seeing that they haven’t forgotten me,” he adds with a laugh.

“Trying Times,” out Friday, feels like a return to form for Blake, who first entered the scene back in 2009 with the release of the 12-inch EP “Air & Lack Thereof” followed by three more EPs. The following self-titled album in 2011 bolstered his success and artistic ability.

He spent the next decade receiving similar recognition, even snatching up a best rap performance Grammy Award for his work on “King’s Dead” in 2018. The hit song came off the “Black Panther” soundtrack and saw him work alongside Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock and Future.

But he was also floating within the major label labyrinth, which often came with financial expectations that put artistic expression in the back seat.

In April 2024, he finally left that system behind, announcing on Instagram that he had left his label and was — for the first time in just over a decade — signed to an independent label in the L.A.-based Good Boy Records.

“It feels scary to go independent, but here we are,” he wrote at the time. “Just trying to break free of the algorithm gods gatekeeping art.”

This coincided with another transition in Blake leaving Los Angeles. The U.K.-born artist had lived in the city for more than a decade — just about as long as he had been under major labels.

“The whole time I was in L.A., on every call, in every conversation I had about my music, it felt like people were just excited that there was someone famous on it,” he recalls. “That’s not just because of the fame obsession, but it’s also that they’re looking out for the shareholders.”

When he first moved to L.A., it gave him a “slowness” and a pace of life that was less demanding than in other cities. It’s perhaps what L.A. is best known for, but its other, more infamous traits began to show over time.

“I realized at some point, L.A. was for me — and quite a few people who are not native — a sort of rehab where I needed to go to work things out,” Blake continues. “It also comes with the corrupt value system of Hollywood, the music industry. … It’s a place where there is a system set up to basically drain any talented people who come there financially, right? You just plug into the matrix and that’s it. You’re just hooked up to the machine.”

Despite having a very “privileged” version of the L.A. lifestyle, he still couldn’t quite strip himself free of its qualms. This became especially apparent during the pandemic, when many artists in the city — including himself — began to paper over the cracks and were perceived as living as usual.

“I ended up kind of paying everybody else’s bills, basically. And then being like, ‘how do I pay mine?’” he recalls.

And that’s when home beckoned to him.

“Coming back to London was great for me because the industry is not quite the same here, and it’s easier to live cheaply,” he says.

He also clarifies that the industry and working machine of L.A. are entirely different from the actual city and its people: “I’ve had some of the happiest moments of my life in L.A. I’m so privileged and feel so grateful that I got to live there.”

But he quickly found himself back to square one; back to where it all started. His path had landed him in London, the same city where he’d begun recording music from his bedroom while studying at Goldsmiths University of London.

He says he was in debt on account of paying other people’s bills after becoming an independent artist. Eventually, he was able to “steady the ship,” and “Trying Times” was born.

“I will stand on the rooftop and shout about it, probably forever. I feel like I never want to stop promoting it,” he says of the album.

The album reflects all the turmoil and subsequent tranquility that Blake found within the music. This is perhaps most evident on “Rest of Your Life,” which is more reminiscent of his earlier EPs, such as “CMYK,” than projects he’s put out in the past few years.

It opens with a Dusty Springfield sample because, simply, “I love it.” But the rest of the song is anchored by Blake’s production and lyrical prowess.

“It’s playing on that sort of mantra thing, where it’s just this one thing going over and over, going round and round,” he says.

This is ever-present in his music. If you look as early as his debut, it’s found on “The Wilhelm Scream,” where he loops “I don’t know about my dreams / I don’t know about my dreamin’ anymore / All that I know is / I’m fallin’, fallin’, fallin’, fallin’ / Might as well fall in.”

For “Trying Times,” Blake looked to his past, drawing inspiration from “The Colour in Anything,” which he released a decade ago.

(The Tyler Twins / For The Times)

“By the way, they’re not even my lyrics, they’re my dad’s lyrics,” he notes with a smile. “I love those lyrics because they’re ambiguous enough, but they’re also something that we can apply a meaning to.”

Two years later, on “Life Round Here,” he repeats, “Everything feels like touchdown on a rainy day.”

“What the form of a mantra does is it means that you don’t really have to worry about wrapping things up,” he explains.

“Sometimes that can be really powerful, because you’re allowing the brain to shut off and allow the feelings to come through without stimulating thought. You can let people be in their bodies. You can let people just live in their emotional selves and just not have to compute what you’re trying to say.”

It creates a hypnotic sound that makes songs flow rather than drone on, especially when backed by Blake’s enthralling production.

“The Colour in Anything,” an album that he cites as a strong inspiration for “Trying Times,” contains “Choose Me,” perhaps the pinnacle of this practice. Amid a looping vocal recording, Blake declares distortedly, “I’d rather you choose me.”

That retrospective came down to a conversation with his longtime girlfriend, the actor Jameela Jamil, who, after Blake had spent countless hours studying historically successful albums as reference, suggested that the answer for creating “Trying Times” was actually in himself.

“You contain within you the answer to this record,” she told him.

What came of it was a far more concise album: “All meat, no fat,” he says, before pausing.

“I’ve said this before, but I’m vegetarian, so I don’t know how to use that phrase properly,” he jokes.

A particular highlight is “Days Go By,” about the inability to be present in life, something that Blake has struggled with in the past. Notably, his previous decisions to tack it up to other, prevalent life circumstances.

“I can’t keep blaming the city / I can’t keep saying I’m busy / Days on days go by / And nothing gets done,” he sings, while an electronically-doused “I love you” loops in the background.

“One of the interesting things about L.A. was, when I moved there, I couldn’t really blame the city anymore because I wasn’t in an oppressive place,” he remembers. “It’s a perfect encapsulation of, ‘S—, I need to grow, I need to figure this out, and it’s not going to happen by just going along with life as it is.’”

But perhaps the best thing to come of the record was that Blake was able to “solve some riddles” that had haunted him for quite some time.

“I started on the road to building a blueprint for what the next phase of the music industry looks like, by partnering with all these companies and discovering new streams of income for artists,” he says.

It’s something he’s long been involved in and advocated for, even participating in the launch of direct-to-consumer music platform vault.fm as a flagship artist in an effort to address royalty issues.

“I’m working on something right now,” he says, careful not to reveal too much. “It’s just centralizing all of the different parts of the road map that I’ve been trying to build for myself.”

Now, it seems this road map may help to pave the way for newer artists as they endeavor to take the more logistical steps of their careers.

“I’m not someone who’s gonna try and lead anything … I’m just pointing at stuff and going, ‘That’s transparent! Oh, that place doesn’t try to own your masters forever!’ I’m going, ‘I think this is good, they have the right ethics and morals.’”