Last night, as you doubtless know, James Blake took home the Mercury Prize for his second album Overgrown.
A highlight from the aftermath of the award – this awkward interview between Blake and Newsnight‘s Steve Smith. The conversation starts off on a bad foot when Smith refers to people downloading the album before he does buying a physical copy (totally fair, of course, but Blake doesn’t exactly look impressed), and continues down a similar path. Smith asks Blake whether Overgrown is “a howl of pain about England and the planet today” or “more ambient chillax”, to which Blake replies “chillax – that’s progressive for Newsnight“, before threatening to play “something really experimental to [Newsnight‘s] chillaxing audience” if he’s ever on the show.
Earlier in the night, Blake had been introduced to the show’s audience as James Blunt. Smooth.
