The songs on The Bells Sketch have a speed of around 72 beats per minute, which is considered slow for dance music.

[2] The title track of the EP features "playful" vocals, "erratic jazz piano basslines", and synthesizers.

[2] The next track, "Buzzard and Kestrel", starts with a mixture of muffled vocals and dog whistle melodies.

Mike Coleman of Fact gave The Bells Sketch 4 and a half "records" out of 5, saying "The Bells Sketch is a complex thing – beautiful and difficult, its glitch-peppered oddities are addictive, but bursting at the seams with a desire to experiment and a complete lack of compromise.

Speaking of the EP, critic Oli Marlow said: "Deliciously weird, off-key and superbly layered, James Blake's debut outing on Hessle Audio manages to succinctly justify the hype his work is now receiving.