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James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

Posted By: Designol
James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue+Log) + Scans ~ 322 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR 320/Stereo) + Scans ~ 107 Mb (incl 5%)
Genre: New Acoustic, Instrumental, Alternative Folk | Label: Tompkins Square | # SQ1967 | Time: 00:42:42

James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

Not since Michael Hedges shook the foundations of the acoustic guitar world 23 years ago with the release of Aerial Boundaries has a guitarist created such unique music as 25-year-old UK native James Blackshaw. On The Cloud of Unknowing, his sixth full-length album in less than four years, Blackshaw masterfully paints landscapes of sound with his 12-string guitar and a variety of alternate tunings. The CD begins with Blackshaw chiming rich harmonics from his paired strings, as if sounding a call to morning prayer, beautifully setting pace for the epic title track. On “Running to the Ghost,” he creates mantra-like drones with his bass string tuned to low B, while his contrapuntal picking pattern on the treble strings clatters and shimmers with stunning, unique textures. “Clouds Collapse” provides a brief intermission, recalling experimental ambient pieces like John Fahey’s “The Singing Bridge of Memphis, Tennessee.” Blackshaw has drawn much inspiration from Takoma School originators Fahey and Robbie Basho, and The Cloud of Unknowing flows freely through Eastern modes and Western harmonies, creating an aural masterpiece. In Blackshaw’s hands the guitar becomes otherworldly, and his music truly ascends to new places.
Review by Tompkins Square
James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

Still in his middle twenties at the time of this recording, British acoustic 12-string guitarist James Blackshaw has distinguished himself as an innovative and original voice in a very limited medium. Along with Glenn Jones, Jack Rose, and Sir Richard Bishop, Blackshaw is forging a new acoustic trail for the guitar. Comparisons between all of these guitarists are futile, as are attempts to report on their "influences." Blackshaw in particular stands out for his use solely of a 12-string; his long elegant lines and incredibly detailed methods of fingerpicking; his meld of Eastern modes alongside pastoral Western harmonics; his historical sense of Celtic folk music; and his elegant, full bodied, but nearly fluid approach to both composition and improvisation – which are blended seamlessly in his pieces. The Cloud of Unknowing is his first recording readily available in the United States. Released by the venerable yet tiny Tompkins Square imprint (which also reissued his back catalog), this is a side of Blackshaw displayed only partially on his Celeste, Sunshrine, and O True Believers recordings. Using various tunings, Blackshaw seemingly enters the opening title track from the middle, spinning an airy narrative from a complex yet utterly accessible extrapolation of theme and variation. There are drones that actually provide a rhythmic counterpoint to his enveloping mist of ringing strings and climbing and falling scalar work. On "Running to the Ghost," Blackshaw also plays glockenspiel, and is accompanied by violinist Fran Bury (who also guests on the set's final cut, "Stained Glass Windows"). The opening rhythmic pattern established by his fingerpicking – especially on the low strings – is glissando-like in structure, and is given weight by the accompanying instruments. His bass strings move off indirectly from the shimmering harmonic interplay and become a series of counterpoint harmonies, offering melodic possibilities in the middle that are hinted at rather than openly stated.

The brief "Clouds Collapse" is a soundscape track that acts as the album's hinge and breaks the listener's concentration momentarily before his minor-key "The Mirror Speaks" reenters with a much more pronounced theme and architecture, where scales are improvised on a nearly country & western theme (with a Middle Eastern melody playing against and into the theme), but stretched to the breaking point. Think of "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" alongside an oud melody played by Hamza el Din. The album's 15-plus-minute closer, "Stained Glass Windows," opens so blissfully and sparely that it feels like it doesn't fit the disc. Blackshaw's meandering scalar work appears almost haphazardly inside a very loose and deceptively simple and seemingly random thematic structure. It picks up speed quickly, however, and gently and purposely becomes a full-blown 12-string bliss-out accented by a double rhythmic counterpoint played against a pair of melodies. One feels literally as if in the presence of the Divine. This feeling is simply ratcheted up for seven minutes or so before Bury's violin, accented and textured by electronics, enters in full dissonant mode, creating a sense of the Fall. It's chaotic, harsh, and utterly ruinous in a sense, until the realization that it is in this space of freedom and dislocation that you struggle to find your ground, and its intention is to show the flip side of the lyric order of Western music (think Ornette Coleman playing violin with sound effects blurring nearly every line except his pitch frequencies), which, inexplicably, takes the track abruptly out into the void, where the listener is left wondering breathlessly about what just transpired. The Cloud of Unknowing is Blackshaw's most sophisticated and utterly engaging album yet, and offers American audiences a startling first listen to a musical visionary. Highly recommended.
Review by Thom Jurek, Allmusic.com
James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

A brilliant and innovative 12-string guitar player, James Blackshaw was born in 1981 in London, where he continues to make his home. Another in a long string of amazing British acoustic guitar wizards, Blackshaw has been compared at various times to Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, Robbie Basho, John Fahey, Glenn Jones, Jack Rose, and Leo Kottke, among others, but his sound, often modal and based on improvising across set themes, is entirely his own. Blackshaw released several limited CD-R albums as he began his career, including 2004's Celeste and Lost Prayers and Motionless Dancers, 2005's Sunshrine, and the live Waking into Sleep in 2006. Important Records issued O True Believers in 2006, after which Blackshaw moved to Tompkins Square Records, which released The Cloud of Unknowing in 2007 and began reissuing his black catalog (Celeste and Sunshrine both reappeared from Tompkins Square in 2008). A second Tompkins Square CD of new material, Litany of Echoes, was also issued in 2008. Released in 2010, All Is Falling featured Blackshaw working in the studio with electric 12-string guitar for the first time.
Biography by Steve Leggett, Allmusic.com
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Tracklist:
1. The Cloud Of Unknowing - 10:55
2. Running To The Ghost - 6:16
3. Clouds Collapse - 3:56
4. The Mirror Speaks - 6:31
5. Stained Glass Windows - 15:04


Отчёт EAC об извлечении, выполненном 12. января 2009, 9:02 для диска:
James Blackshaw / The Cloud Of Unknowing

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Коррекция смещения при чтении: 6
Способность читать области Lead-in и Lead-out : Нет

Выходной формат: Внутренние WAV-операции
44.100 Гц; 16 бит; стерео

Другие параметры:
Заполнение пропущенных сэмплов тишиной : Да
Удаление блоков с тишиной в начале и конце : Нет
Встроенный Win32-интерфейс для Win NT/2000


Характеристики диапазона извлечения и сообщения об ошибках
Выбранный диапазон
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James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)