James Blackshaw (UK/Young God) + Cinema Of Spirits + Espen Jørgensen

Med en omfattende backcatalog på labler som Young Gud Records, Tompkins Square og Important Records, har han utviklet en unik spillestil som tar Takoma-skolens fingerspill inn i en helt ny verden. Med virvlende overtoner, brusende melodier og lysfontenekaskader skaper han stadig skiftende teksturer som bærer påvirkning av moderne klassisk komposisjon, post-rockens dynamikk og i hjertet av dette ligger usynlige lydspor fra den amerikanske folk gitartradisjon.

Til tross for hans transcendentale musikk er han en jordet og jordisk fyr som har blitt skrevet om med ærbødighet. Han har spilt kirker, festivaler, folkemusikk-klubber og store konsertsaler på hans mange reiser i USA, Europa og Japan. Disse omfatter omfattende turnévirksomhet med den reformerte Swans, samt samarbeid  med Hauschka og Nancy Elizabeth. Han er fast medlem av Current 93 og med Jozef Van Wissem som Brethren of The Free Spirit.

Hans nyeste album Love is The Plan, The Plan Is Death ble utgitt på Important Records i april 2012. Skrevet i en tid med stor emosjonell uro, det er en vakker og  bittersøtt kammerverk som inneholder seks opprinnelige stykker hvis titler er nydelig underslått fra de korte historier av den store science fiction-forfatteren James Tiptree Jr AKA Alice B. Sheldon. Instrumenteringen er mer nedstrippet enn på de siste albumene, slik at hans upåklagelige nylon-streng klassisk gitarspill kommer i forgrunnen, med små detaljer som skraping av fingrene på strengene og pustemønstre legger han til emosjonell ærlighet av rang.

Pressen om James Blackshaw:

"... A veritable solo symphony that's as schooled in uncommon beauty as it is in complex 20th century composition... Blackshaw writes high drama into instrumental music with subtlety and charm, speaking on sentiments and stories without requiring a single lyric... Blackshaw seems fully settled, engaging his pieces and ideas with the unflinching belief of Tony Conrad in 1964 or Steve Reich in 1965..." - Grayson Currin, Pitchforkmedia.com

"...his first Young God album, 'The Glass Bead Game', continues Blackshaw’s hot streak that has stretched for four or five years now. This one has five longish to epic tracks, two of which feature Blackshaw on piano, a development of the work he     initiated on “Litany Of Echoes”….The sound this time is a little fuller, a little more orchestrated, a little further away from the folk/Takoma school tag he was first saddled with, but his grace-filled compositional style remains more or less consistent...gorgeous, pensive...an extraordinary album" - John Mulvey/Uncut Magazine

"...strong influences from outside the precincts of folk music: minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Terry Riley, and some of their precursors, like Erik Satie... [Blackshaw] fingerpicks his 12-string Guild with an immersive focus befitting such heady allusions... a stark and ancient feeling, like something handed down through the ages...." - NY Times

"...one of the best and most original instrumentalists in the new, acoustic renaissance." - Rolling Stone

"In the tradition of "American Primitive" guitarists within which he's often grouped, James Blackshaw cuts rather an odd figure. Neither American, nor primitive, nor as Litany of Echoes begins, even playing the guitar, the English musician is all about upending the expectations we might have from his instrument. Whereas kindred spirits like John Fahey and Robbie Basho looked East for their Raga-inspired guitar diversions, Blackshaw instead sounds more East-Coast: his long-distance guitar tunes recalling NY minimalism, or Sonic Youth, as arranged for chamber orchestra. Mesmerising stuff, and proof that less is often more." - John Robinson, Uncut Magazine

"There's an indecent ease to James Blackshaw's guitar playing. His fingerpicking mantras are as melodic as a music box, gliding through dizzying tempos like clockwork... Such is the silky control he exherts over his instrument, Blackshaw often sounds more like a court harpist than a backwoods strummer." - Derek Walmsey, The Wire

"The most gem-like overlooked album this year is neither hairy nor scary; rubber-necking into the great unknown isn't high in its priorities. But it is preternaturally beautiful. O True Believers by 24-year-old guitarist James Blackshaw features 10 fingers and 12 strings and, frankly, urinates all over whatever will be the Mercury Prize's token folk nominee next year. Blackshaw is British, but virtually no one has heard of him outside the US folk underground; he deserves ticker-tape parades. His style derives from the Takoma school founded by John Fahey, but that is all detail. Blackshaw's got it all: skills to hyperventilate for, and instinctual loveliness in spades." - Kitty Empire, The Observer