#jamesblackshaw

How I found IDM / why I'm here ramblings

I'd just consider myself someone who loves to explore music. I've always had a general taste for instrumental music, starting more with piano and american folk guitar but I've always picked up random stuff. I found Dj spooky's celestial mechanix and that is what really propelled me on the electronic/dub/producer kick. Kinda gradually changed my ideas about music and opened up such awesome new worlds to me.

Dj shadow, dj cam, four tet, gold panda, prefuse 73, Daedalus, kodomo, Isan, Deru...

As I fell in love with Guitar music (John fahey, kottke, Tim sparks, James blackshaw) It seemed natural for me to be inspired to create similar things myself. But as I've moved towards a more IDM dominated exploration the creation of it is so foreign to me, it's not as easy as picking up a guitar and plucking around.

Here are the releases I played tracks from tonight on my weekly campus radio show New Directions:

So I found this guy through random discussions with a friend online about music. I feel like I’ve been unable to drop the song. Being a bassist I’ve dreamed of becoming the next Jaco Pastorious or Victor Wooten. However I lack a teacher that could skillfully show me how to step up my playing ability. Not only that I don’t have the drive to sit down by myself and just learn.

Anyway, James Blackshaw is the artist responsible for this song. To anyone seeing this I hope you enjoy.

James Blackshaw - Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death 

Technical ability alone is vertically obsolete in most forms of art unless you're really, really, really, good at something. James Blackshaw is one of those people who is really, really, really, good at something. He just has to play a few notes onhis guitar and he could stop a freight train, it's that easy to be in awe of what he does. Until now his many albums of twelve stringed orchestral madness have been a pleasure largely reserved for guitar nerds only. He's a freak of nature, The Cloud Of Unknowing, his 2007 technical masterpiece, was released when he was just 25. People that young shouldn't be that good at anything. 

People often forget the real reason James Blackshaw is successful. He's able to translate his incredible technical ability to overwhelmingly beautiful, personal pieces of music. Read anything the guy says in any interview and it's clear his music is heart-on-sleeve personal. On his latest, Love is the Plan, The Plan is Death, he's dulled down the technical side of things and amped up the personal side of things, possibly to make that clear. That's not to say there's not some jaw dropping guitar moments on this record, there's plenty, but he's using a six string now and there's less Colin Stetson esq "how the fuck is one dude making all that noise at one time" moments. It's a recipe that clearly shows that the success of his records don't rest on showing off his insane technical ability, because clearly a very talented composer as well. 

There's some familiarities, literary references run rampant as per usual and I guess the music could still be described as "experimental folk." Highly considered album structure is always a factor with Blackshaw as well, The Cloud of Unknowing's five tracks operated on an arch, a 10 minute wave of  sound to start, a technical emotion tugging masterpiece ("Running to the Ghost"), a electronic interlude to break things up and give you a breather, then companions to the first two tracks in reverse. This record uses a different strategy to break up the guitar. There's a vocal contribution (a first that I'm aware of) and there's some piano as well, a medium he has been increasingly keen on working with on his last few records. It's all welcome and none of it bad, but the Blackshaw you really want to hear is the one with the guitar in his hands. He has such control of  what he's conveying, and so convincing with that instrument it feels like he could use it to pursued you to do anything.