James Blackshaw
(Tompkins Square)
There lately seems a glut of post-Fahey guitar players on the scene. Many are quite good, but I’m a Fahey fan and am therefore find myself a bit hypercritical of his acolytes. Playing in the mode of the master isn’t quite good enough, particularly since Fahey himself was himself extending a form he shook out of field recordings and American acoustic traditions (and later extended that further into noise and ambience).
James Blackshaw is one acoustic guitarist (12 string as it turns out) that gets lumped into the post-Fahey pool, but in some ways it is a fallacious comparison. Blackshaw is a fine guitarist, to be sure, but a quick listen to any of his albums—and his new Litany of Echoes—is as good a place to start as any—should place him more accurately as a composer than a player. This isn’t a statement meant to denigrate his playing, which is clear, virtuosic, and dexterous, but rather to underscore what makes his music truly interesting: the interplay of guitars along with, on Litany of Echoes, the addition of Fran Bury’s violin and viola parts.
In terms of composition, Claude Debussy is a touchstone here, but no less important a connection is Maurice Ravel. Particularly in a piece such as Blackshaw’s “Past Has Not Passed,” one can hear connections to the opening “Ondine” section of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit as well as the impressionism of Debussy. Impressionism itself is an important descriptor as this is music that is impressionistic in the best possible sense.
Blackshaw’s project here is a workout in density of notes and textures, most often sonorously complementing each other, with two fast minimalist piano compositions bookending the guitar-driven pieces. Titled “Gate of Ivory” and “Gate of Horn,” these try to offer a kind of way into and out of the central four pieces, although compositionally it’s difficult to really understand how or why they are there. Of the central four pieces, they are decidedly similar in texture, tempo, and tonality. The latter point is one problem with the album as a whole: At times it’s a bit too much the same, particularly with three pieces clocking in at right around twelve minutes.
Blackshaw has used the tradition of impressionism to make a contemporary album that might have more readily fit the roster of Windham Hill than Takoma, but likely would have been a bit too much for either. It’s pushing backwards harder than it is pushing forward, but unlike his contemporaries who seem to lament being able to sit at the table of Fahey, Blackshaw’s roots pull him to late-19th century French composition. In the end it is this that makes Litany of Echoes feel as forward looking as it sometimes does.
Standout Tracks: “Past Has Not Passed,” “Infinite Circle” CHRISTIAN KIEFER
