MUSIC
James Blackshaw's New Classic
/ Brian Howe
05.19.09
James Blackshaw
The Glass Bead Game
Young God Records; May 26 2009
Brethren of the Free Spirit
The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb
Important Records; November 11 2008
James Blackshaw’s habit of archaic titling makes it mildly surprising to discover that the British 12-string guitarist is only in his late-twenties, a lapsed punk now composing virtuosic incantations of an often-medieval bent. But his titles perfectly capture the arcane aura of his precise, delirious music. One of his albums, The Cloud of Unknowing, is named after a fourteenth-century spiritual guidebook. Another, Litany of Echoes, is book-ended by two tracks named after the mythical gates of ivory and horn (most famously mentioned in The Odyssey and The Aeneid, as well as figuring in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman) from which false and true dreams, respectively, originate.
What seems at first like a rather serious concept about navigating between truth and fiction is revealed, at the end, to also be a sort of dark joke: the gates of truth and lies are identical, other than the droning strings hung around the former like tinsel. The balance of gravity and playfulness in Blackshaw’s labyrinthine music owes a debt to Borges, which he paid by naming his compilation of experimental music for solo stringed instruments Garden of Forking Paths. Channeling lush, idiosyncratic classical guitar (think Fahey, Basho, Kottke) with the hypnotic rigor of ambient and post-minimal aesthetics, he gins up deep rumbles on the lower strings, glimmering melodies on the higher ones, evoking again a pair of metaphysical gates through which mysteries pass.
Like most of Blackshaw’s work, his newest album, The Glass Bead Game, is both seductive and impregnable; an imposing seaside cliff in the distance to which no road arrives. The album is named after Hermann Hesse’s final novel, but it’s easy to imagine that it’s another homage: Blackshaw might be from an alternate universe where Philip Glass dedicated himself more to the guitar than the piano. The composer’s iconic style is writ large in these five compositions, which rush and stream in tranquil ecstasy. “Cross” recalls Glass’ Music in 12 Parts, with voice-like strings plaiting eternally through the latticework of Blackshaw’s guitar. And “Fix,” one of the album’s two piano-led pieces, directly quotes from Glass’ solo piano work, although its orderly ranks of chords are rendered in the delicately wafting style of Erik Satie (or the modern-day piano-romantic Eluvium).
The Glass Bead Game
Young God Records; May 26 2009
Brethren of the Free Spirit
The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb
Important Records; November 11 2008
James Blackshaw’s habit of archaic titling makes it mildly surprising to discover that the British 12-string guitarist is only in his late-twenties, a lapsed punk now composing virtuosic incantations of an often-medieval bent. But his titles perfectly capture the arcane aura of his precise, delirious music. One of his albums, The Cloud of Unknowing, is named after a fourteenth-century spiritual guidebook. Another, Litany of Echoes, is book-ended by two tracks named after the mythical gates of ivory and horn (most famously mentioned in The Odyssey and The Aeneid, as well as figuring in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman) from which false and true dreams, respectively, originate.
What seems at first like a rather serious concept about navigating between truth and fiction is revealed, at the end, to also be a sort of dark joke: the gates of truth and lies are identical, other than the droning strings hung around the former like tinsel. The balance of gravity and playfulness in Blackshaw’s labyrinthine music owes a debt to Borges, which he paid by naming his compilation of experimental music for solo stringed instruments Garden of Forking Paths. Channeling lush, idiosyncratic classical guitar (think Fahey, Basho, Kottke) with the hypnotic rigor of ambient and post-minimal aesthetics, he gins up deep rumbles on the lower strings, glimmering melodies on the higher ones, evoking again a pair of metaphysical gates through which mysteries pass.
Like most of Blackshaw’s work, his newest album, The Glass Bead Game, is both seductive and impregnable; an imposing seaside cliff in the distance to which no road arrives. The album is named after Hermann Hesse’s final novel, but it’s easy to imagine that it’s another homage: Blackshaw might be from an alternate universe where Philip Glass dedicated himself more to the guitar than the piano. The composer’s iconic style is writ large in these five compositions, which rush and stream in tranquil ecstasy. “Cross” recalls Glass’ Music in 12 Parts, with voice-like strings plaiting eternally through the latticework of Blackshaw’s guitar. And “Fix,” one of the album’s two piano-led pieces, directly quotes from Glass’ solo piano work, although its orderly ranks of chords are rendered in the delicately wafting style of Erik Satie (or the modern-day piano-romantic Eluvium).
