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James Blackshaw
Blackshaw has been featured in a range of magazines across the world including The Seattle Weekly, The Washington Post, Italy's Blow Up magazine and most recently in a one page article in the October 2006 issue of The Wire. His last album, "O True Believers" (Important Records/Bo'Weavil Recordings) also received enthusiastic reviews in Pitchfork, Fakejazz, Uncut, The Wire, Signal To Noise, The Observer (one of the UK's most highly-regarded national newspapers) and many other printed and online magazines.
After succesfully touring Japan, Europe, Scandanavia, US and UK in 2005 and 2006, playing with artists such as Sir Richard Bishop, Espers, Brightblack Morning Light, Feathers, Greg Davis, Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Sharron Kraus, Simon Finn, Marissa Nadler, Alexander Tucker, Josephine Foster, Seiichi Yamamoto of The Boredoms (with whom he improvised with) and Christina Carter. James Blackshaw has been busy recording a new album, entitled "The Cloud of Unknowing", which will be released by New York's Tompkins Square label in early 2007, alongside CD reissues of his earlier, out-of-print, limited edition albums.
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James Blackshaw: The Glass Bead Game
by David Rickert
Had Ira Gitler not encountered John Coltrane and heard James Blackshaw instead, he might have used his famous sheets of sound" to describe the guitarist's music. Blackshaw uses his twelve-string guitar to create giant waves of chords that repeat motifs, creating a harmonious and meditative music that is like new age music for the intelligentsia. New age has such a negative stigma that I hesitate to use that word in describing what Blackshaw does, but there's no denying that that's ...
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by Chris May
Music of such shimmering, unalloyed, heavenly beauty as this doesn't come along very often. Maybe once or twice a decade. Guitarist Johnny Smith's early masterpiece Moonlight In Vermont (reissued Roulette, 2004) and harmonica player Hendrik Meurkens' Amazon River (Blue Toucan, 2005) are amongst recent releases of comparable loveliness.
British 12-string acoustic guitarist James Blackshaw's roots lie in the Takoma school of American primitivism led by guitarist John Fahey--in the cosmic sentimentalism" which Fahey turned against in his final ...
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Source:
JamBase
By: Dennis Cook
Meditative but never somnambulant, James Blackshaw's latest merges the the comforting acoustic layering of early, excellent Windham Hill albums with the more highfalutin' fingerpicked guitar machinations of Sandy Bull and Robbie Basho. The Glass Bead Game (released May 26 on Young God Records) builds from the tintinnabulous base of Blackshaw's exquisite 12-string guitar, adding empathetic strings, wordless vocals, splashes of piano and other subtle touches. He's joined by Current 93 members John Contreras (cello) and Joolie Wood ...
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James Blackshaw Catalogue Released Digitally
Source:
Big Hassle
Tompkins Square Label has released three catalog albums by 25 year old experimental 12-string guitarist and composer James Blackshaw, from the UK. The albums, Sunshrine". Celeste" and Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances" have previously only been available as tiny private press editions. All are available via itunes, eMusic and all digital platforms.
AllAboutJazz.com says of Blackshaw's most recent album, The Cloud of Unknowing, Music of such shimmering, unalloyed, heavenly beauty as this doesn't come along very often. Maybe once or ...
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Music
Running To The Ghost
From: The Cloud Of UnknowingBy James Blackshaw