Search - James Blackshaw :: Cloud of Unknowing (Dig)

Much of the new music from James Blackshaw sounds like old music from John Fahey, as the 25-year-old British guitarist channels the adventurous acoustic dynamic that the late Fahey dubbed "American primitive." The opening title cut lasts almost 11 minutes; the closing "Stained Glass Windows" lasts even longer, as an introspective instrumental reverie culminates in a mind-blowing (or blown) coda that threatens to extend forever. In between those two most expansively Faheyesque progressions, "Running to the Ghosts" has a hint of "Tubular Bells" and "Clouds Collapse" evokes a Chinese tea house, with exotic tunings and atmospherics. For all of Blackshaw's 12-string virtuosity, he occasionally crosses the line from the hypnotic to the merely repetitive, and some of his passages would be twice as effective with half the notes. --Don McLeese