Caught Live: James Blake + Cloud Boat @ Whelans, Dublin

Although the insane levels of hype that surrounded James Blake at the turn of the year may now have died down somewhat – say what you want about his debut LP, but it’s certainly not 'the future of music' – that hasn’t stopped the prodigious producer from selling-out Whelans in blink-and-you-missed-it time. And despite the rather divisive reception that greeted that album earlier this year, the Londoner appears admirably intent on pursuing his current aesthetic approach - even to the point of making some frankly daft remarks recently about remixing being the equivalent of "musical prostitution". Hence the absence tonight of material from early EPs such as CMYK or The Bells Sketch, with their inventive mutant-glitch-funk-dub sound; instead, the set is characterised by the sparse, soulful, sometimes spiritually-tinged excursions taken on Klavierwerke and James Blake.

Following a support set from seated London duo Cloud Boat that’s marked by patient atmospherics, the tall, pleasingly unassuming Blake takes to the stage and launches into the gently undulating ‘Unluck’. For this listener, the problem with tunes such as this opener and ‘To Care (Like You)’ is that, though undeniably charming in their own way, they really do sound watered-down in the context of what we know Blake is capable of. The vocals and glitches deployed on the former, for instance, are a pale imitation of the chopped vocal techniques used throughout his earlier EPs. More alarmingly still - and even if you strip away the context of his earlier work and simply examine Blake’s current sound for what it is - there are times during the first half of tonight's set when we may as well be hearing Jamie Lidell, or even (during ‘Lindesfarne’) a second-rate Bon Iver.

Thankfully, though, towards the end of what amounts to a pretty short set, things do eventually pick up. As in, the bass starts to take over. The opening strains of ‘Limit to Your Love’ are greeted enthusiastically, and when the song’s unmistakeable bass fills kick in, the effect is stunning: deep and cavernous, you can feel the venue shaking as well as your insides. It’s a remarkable version, trumping its recorded equivalent for sheer visceral impact. An excellent reading of ‘Klavierwerke’ then follows, while the mournful ‘The Wilhelm Scream’ builds and swells, climaxing in a deafening wall of sound. And with that, it’s all over.

Among certain quarters of Blake’s more vocal critics, the argument goes that the twenty-one year-old's songwriterly tendencies are/were a lot more striking and effective when combined with his boundary-pushing electronic production. It's hard for this audience member to disagree: witness, for example, the way ‘I Never Learnt To Share’ blended thrillingly with Starkey’s ‘Time Traveller’ on Blake's 2009 Electronic Explorations mix. When he focuses on his current, stripped-back sound alone, it comes up disappointingly short; as a result, for long stretches tonight there’s just not enough to justify all that hype.

Now that you've read Daniel Harrison's verdict on the gig, go here to view a gallery of Mark Earley's photos from inside a packed Whelans.