James Blake “starting not to care” about illegal downloading

Considering his debut album leaked only days after its initial announcement, leading to claims of it being the “best album of 2011″ even before the previous calendar year had ended, you could forgive James Blake’s label for wanting to keep things under wraps this time round.

Only, they haven’t. With Overgrown being released today in the UK, and elsewhere worldwide later in the week, Universal have already previewed five of the album’s 10 tracks online.

And now it seems like James Blake is a bit fatigued by the whole affair, speaking to The Guardian recently about the major label’s haphazard approach to digital marketing.

Blake told the paper:

“And why wouldn’t you [download Overgrown illegally]? My label [Universal] is hoping that on April 8 you’ll do the right thing and click the ‘Buy’ button. You should see what they’re doing online just to get people to look at the ‘Buy’ button. I’m starting not to care, to be honest. Things are changing. The ship isn’t just going down. There are people trapped inside, bashing on the windows trying to get out.”

Overgrown is Blake’s second record to date, and features the brilliant lead single ‘Retrograde’, which you can stream the video to below.

Blake plays the following live dates this month:

April
9 – Heaven, London
10 – Academy 2, Manchester
11 – The Arches, Glasgow