Splendour’s James Blake’s Shock At triple j’s ‘Male Bias’

16 July 2013 | 4:20 pm | Cyclone Wehner

"I don't know if that represents a devaluation of female artists."

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Splendour In The Grass-bound James Blake has expressed his astonishment over the lack of women voted by triple j listeners into this year's Hottest 100 of the past 20 years poll.

“Fucking hell... It's a bit of a weird statistic,” the British post-dubstep soulster told theMusic.com.au when discussing that just nine tracks in the controversial poll featured female lead or co-lead vocals.

"I don't know what to say about that…” he added, “I don't know if that represents a devaluation of female artists.”

At the time Station Manager Chris Scaddan wrote, “We support a wide selection of female artists on triple j radio every day… triple j takes diversity very seriously and I'd argue we spend more time acting on it than most other media outlets in the country. This means diversity of genres of music, diversity of Australian and indigenous content, diversity of genders and nationalities, diversity of voices on air during talkback and diversity of issues.”

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Blake himself has long cited female artists as influences. He broke through with a sub-bass interpretation of Feist's Limit To Your Love and the North Londoner has also covered Joni Mitchell's A Case Of You, which he cites it as his favourite ever song.

A post-show conversation with Mitchell about musical longevity inspired the title-track to his latest acclaimed album, Overgrown. "She is an incredible woman," he said, “she's just an amazing character.”

He's also signalled a want to collaborate with freak folk muso Joanna Newsom and sampled Aaliyah and Kelis on his cult CMYK EP. His girlfriend Theresa Wayman plays guitar with Warpaint.