BLAKE
File under: 'Eclectic'
Bio
Blake recorded his first album, Solomon's Tump in 2003, in a Cheltenham bedsit playing all the parts himself, following the break-up of his relationship with his fiancé. (NB A good four years before those catalogue model choristers nicked his name!) In 2004, inspired by The Bevis Frond, Blake formed retro-rock band Karmatruffle with his mates Magda McCaffrey, Paul Kench and Jamie Jordan. The same year, having received a copy of Solomon's Tump, Pacale Giovetto (Oasis, My Bloody Valentine, Dave Stewart) asked Blake to sign to her newly formed London based record label Ectomusic. Blake persuaded the label to sign Karmatruffle as a band instead and they set about recording three of Blake's songs for a debut EP. Karmatruffle achieved success with this release, She's Not All That, and embarked on their first UK tour, receiving some rave reviews for their performances at London 's 100 Club and Hope & Anchor and at The Cavern Club, Liverpool. The band decided to self-finance the follow-up album What You Do Comes Back To You to give themselves more artistic control and Blake created his own record label, 'Rockhopper Records', to facilitate this. Another successful nationwide tour supporting Stephen Fretwell to promote the record followed.
Feeling constrained by the indie-rock format, however, Blake embarked on a solo career in 2006 in order to embrace a more eclectic range of songwriting styles, releasing Final Whistle - again playing all the instruments himself - and a remastered version of Solomon's Tump. 2007 saw the release of another two albums recorded at his home studio and released via Rockhopper Records: Carruthers Gets Bashed and By The Banks of the A350. The following year Blake's frenetic recording schedule was scaled down following the birth of his first child, and a compilation of demos and outtakes, Antheology, appeared on the EmuBands imprint - Blake's first download only release. Between May and October of 2009 Blake recorded a new record, Latest Pop Sounds, with, for the first time since Karmatruffle, the assistance of other musicians on a number of tracks: Paul Kench on lead guitar, Chris Scrivens on drums and Joe Brown on organ; released on 11th January 2010.
Blake released a double album, The Parousia, on the 27th July 2010 along with a new single, a re-recorded version of A Better Way featuring Kench, Scrivens and Brown. A compilation of tracks from 2003-2010, entitled A Taste Of Blake, was released on 27th August 2010 to coincide with Blake's appearance at the Greenbelt arts festival.
A Christmas single, The Coventry Carol, featuring Helen Bousfield on flute and concertina, was released on 1st December 2010. Also on this date, Blake performed his debut gig as part of The Bearfield Commune, a collaboration with Razored Cone playing a mixture of Blake and Cone originals and covers.
In April 2011 Blake began writing songs for a new album, 'Stay Human', as a response to reading about the death of the Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni in the Gaza strip. The album was crowd-funded via PledgeMusic.com, with all profits going to the Greenbelt festival. Stay Human was performed in its entirety on Sunday 28th August 2011 at Greenbelt. It will be released on 208 Records early in 2012.
CD editions of most of Blake's albums are available to buy from the Catalogue page. A newly remastered version of Solomon's Tump, featuring five bonus tracks, is available to download in high quality format from Bandcamp.com, as are expanded and remixed versions of Blake's other studio albums. On 24th December 2011, a new studio album, 'The First Snow', was made available as a free download to mailing list members on Bandcamp.
Copyright Blake. All rights reserved.
