A few weeks after announcing his fifth full-length, Friends That Break Your Heart, James Blake has dropped a yearning new single, “Life Is Not The Same.” Opening with eerie, echoing vocal effects, “Life Is Not The Same” comes co-produced courtesy of duo Take A Daytrip, who you might recall also co-produced the Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow track “Industry Baby” with Kanye West. “Life Is Not The Same” also follows “Say What You Will,” a song the Grammy-winning songwriter released featuring Finneas.
“The song is about finding peace with who you are and where you’re at regardless of how well other people seem to be doing,” Blake said when “Say What You Will” dropped in July. “Comparison really is the thief of joy.”
Chatting with MixMag late last year, the reclusive Blake opened up a bit about how his in-public persona has evolved in the last 10 years:
“I think early in my career, I just didn’t do that much press, because I was quite anxious and nervous,” he said. “And that essentially equates to mystery in a way because unless people know about you, and they hear about music through the grapevine, they don’t know what you like, and all that stuff. But actually, in my real life, I found that the mystery didn’t help me. It made me feel less understood! I understand from a consumer’s point of view, there’s probably some lore to that, but I don’t resonate with it at all. But in terms of can you still be mysterious?
Now? I think you can, probably more easily because, you know, there’s just so much turnover in music and if you want to remain anonymous, then all power to you. But ultimately, if you want to make a living as a musician it’s a lot harder to do that. If you’re anonymous now, some of that is those guerrilla tactics, like keeping a name off the flyer and doing hand-stamped pressings, that’s cool. But now, I sort of don’t really see why you would want to limit yourself with it.”
Friends That Will Break Your Heart is out 9/10 via Republic Records. Pre-order it here.