Overgrown

It all started, says James Blake, with Joni Mitchell. His favourite singer-songwriter came to see him at the Troubadour in Los Angeles two years ago and hung around afterwards to talk. "She's an oracle," says James. "I learnt a lot just from meeting her."

What they talked about most was the idea of permanence: how you survive and thrive as an artist. On the flight back to London James wrote Overgrown, the gently immense song which gives its name to his remarkable second album. It's about the things that last: "I don't want to be a star but a stone on the shore, a lone doorframe in a war."

Musically broad and emotionally deep,"Overgrown" as big as an advance on James's eponymous 2011 debut as that album was on the mercurial dubstep of his early EPs, and it reflects how much the 24-year-old Londoner's life has changed in the past two years. His debut sold over 400,000 copies- quite something for a record so uncompromisingly introspective and experimental. It also picked up Mercury, Brit and Ivor Novello nominations, sent him around the world on tour, and brought him into contact with a wide array of fans and collaborators that includes not only Mitchell but Jay-Z, Kanye West, Bon Iver, Björk, Drake, Brian Eno and the RZA.