Assume Form

Background and recording

In 2016, James Blake collaborated with Beyoncé on the album Lemonade. He later stated that he had long felt his position in music was to bubble under the mainstream and be a musician's musician. Blake subsequently worked with Jay-Z on 4:44, Kendrick Lamar on the track "Element", Mount Kimbie on Love What Survives, Oneohtrix Point Never on Age Of, and Travis Scott on "Stop Trying to Be God". In May 2017, Blake revealed he had written new music including "hip-hop things" and "collaborative productions and beats", but was unsure whether they would be stand-alone singles or projects.

He booked spontaneous sessions with Rosalía and André 3000, which produced André 3000's EP Look Ma No Hands and the tracks "Barefoot in the Park" and "Where's the Catch?" from Assume Form. Blake was inspired to collaborate with Rosalía after hearing her debut record Los Ángeles, saying he had not heard anything so vulnerable and raw in a while. He invited her to the studio and made "two or three things", loving the sound of their voices together.

He also performed in the studio with Travis Scott after collaborating on Astroworld, describing the session as unusual because Scott had just released banger after banger yet came in with a vulnerable love song. The session with Moses Sumney and Metro Boomin for "Tell Them" was described by Blake as a vulnerable moment.

Music and lyrics

Assume Form is a pop and electropop album that pulls in hip-hop and R&B, and it’s a lot more upbeat than James Blake’s earlier work. Many critics pointed out how it contrasts with the deeply gloomy mood of The Colour in Anything. Blake sings in both lower registers and falsetto, and the record uses processed vocals along with a layered “self-choir.” A hip-hop beat that first appeared on the track “Can’t Believe the Way We Flow,” which Blake performed several times in late 2017, shows up in different forms across the album.

The lyrics mostly reference Blake’s relationship with his girlfriend Jameela Jamil and their life in Los Angeles. In an interview with Dazed, Blake said the album reflects his current feelings about his girlfriend, and he was responding to Pitchfork calling the lead single “Don’t Miss It” “sad boy music.” He explained that on this record he’s simply talking about how he feels now, and that he’ll keep writing about his emotions—or sometimes not—without feeling pressured to stay silent just because he’s a man.

In a separate interview with Exclaim!, Blake said he wanted to try saying what he actually means, which is hard and scary, and that fear had previously stopped him from doing that.

Promotion and release

In December 2018, Blake mapped out a North American tour kicking off in Atlanta come February 2019 and wrapping up in Los Angeles the next month. Everyone who bought a ticket for that run also got a copy of his upcoming album. Later that same month, during a Brooklyn show, Blake gave a sneak peek of fresh work alongside American rapper and multi-instrumentalist André 3000. On January 3, 2019, a French Amazon pre-order page for the album popped up online, spilling details like the release date, track list, and featured guests.

This leak confirmed that the earlier single "Don't Miss It," dropped on June 4, 2018, was part of the album. But two other tracks—"Vincent," released in late 2017, and "If the Car Beside You Moves Ahead," from earlier in 2018—didn't make the cut. Still, some folks wondered if the whole leak was just an elaborate hoax. Not long after, LED and projection billboards lit up London and New York, promoting the album and pointing to assumeform.com.

That site played a short clip of minimal, ambient music that Shazam identified as "Lullaby for My Insomniac," plus an animated graphic with the album title. A sign-in tag and a video posing questions lifted from the title track's lyrics were added later. On January 10, posters for the album appeared on the London Underground, showing off the cover art and officially setting the release date for January 18, 2019, while also confirming guest spots from André 3000, Travis Scott, Moses Sumney, Metro Boomin, and Rosalía.

Both the track list and the features got the nod on Blake's official Instagram. On January 17, just twelve hours before the album dropped, Blake put out "Mile High" with Travis Scott and Metro Boomin, after premiering it on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 show. A few hours later, a third single, "Lullaby for My Insomniac," came out. "Barefoot in the Park" followed as a single on April 4, complete with a music video, and "Mulholland," found only on the vinyl version of Assume Form, was released as a single on April 26.

Critical reception

Assume Form was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, the album received a weighted average score of 80 out of 100 based on 31 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.4 out of 10. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian praised Blake for adding fresh, noticeably brighter colours to his palette and wrote that it is immensely pleasing to witness an artist who seemed to be at a dead end now moving forward.

Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph gave the album a perfect score, calling it Blake's most fully-realised album to date and dizzyingly romantic. Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic wrote that as a headphones experience the album delivers expected shivers, but concluded its main flaw was in over-explaining his art. Wren Graves of Consequence called the album a remarkable achievement and commended Blake as one of the most original songwriters of his generation.

Jon Pareles wrote that the album opens into haunted, rewarding depths in a review for The New York Times. James Rettig of Stereogum commended the album's features and production, writing that Blake avoids songs bleeding together by grounding each one in unique twists of form. Tom Connick of NME gave the album the site's first five-star rating of 2019, hailing Blake as one of the world's greatest producers and a brilliant songwriter. Helen Brown of The Independent wrote that his trademark intelligence, honesty and pin-drop production remain intact, describing the album as a bubble of personal bliss in an ocean full of plastic.