Review Summary: Guitars and OTHER instruments too!
Early on in his young career, James Blackshaw was stuck between two compositional idioms. On the one hand he seemed to be following the finger picking style of the greats of the neo-folk movement; the John Fahey’s, or in later terms the Jack Rose’s. On the other he was following the minimal classicisms of Steve Reich or Philip Glass. On 2006's
O True Believer, despite whatever influence was continuously name checked by critics, Blackshaw was essentially an ambient artist. Using his otherworldly dexterity, the compositions were a microtonal wall of notes that wove into a tapestry of drone. At it’s best, like other great ambient artists such as Stars of the Lid, Blackshaw injected the slightest moments of melody and harmony to lift pieces such as “Spiraling Skeleton Memorial” into the transcendental. But on the other end stood the tedious, the eleven minutes of “Transient Life in Twilight”, where as a guitarist Blackshaw seemed to be on auto pilot; a mode that has stopped him being a great artist, simply allowing him to be a good one. He seemed to know what his sound was, but it wasn’t always so convincing to the listener. The compositions lacked the challenge that would test his ability at the guitar.
In his subsequent albums Blackshaw expanded upon his instrumental vocabulary, adding piano, strings, organs and even a little percussion. His song writing was changing too; moving from that ambient mix of neo-folk to a more traditional folk structure. The kind of structure where pieces actually had interesting melodic and harmonic parts. It was a move for the better, because rolling through a few open chords and chromatic scales can only really go so far. So melody became a larger focus, culminating in 2009's
The Glass Bead Game, Blackshaw’s most sophisticated album to date. With
All Is Falling that progression has continued toward the melodic, but it has also taken a slight detour into the cinematic realm. The results are bold and exhilarating, if slightly flawed.
Bold because more than ever Blackshaw seems to be more interested in expanding past his signature 12-string acoustic guitar. In fact it isn’t until the lovely "Part Three" that we can hear his acoustic in the background. The piece itself is one of Blackshaw’s most studied and interesting compositions. Using an electric guitar lead that takes over from "Part Two", the piece uses violins to weave in between the melodic guitar creating a nice harmonic balance between the two. It’s an aspect that permeates through much of All is Falling, creeping up again with violins in the twelve minute "Part Seven"; the use of instrumentation to add melodic or harmonic counterpoint. Whether it be the glockenspiel in "Part Four" or the light piano in "Part Two", the album just seems to be brimming with ideas; something that lacked in prior Blackshaw releases.
In the end Blackshaw still has some things to learn. While the droning epilogue of "Part Eight" is appropriately pretty, its length (over eight minutes) doesn’t feel earned. So the album somewhat whimpers away without the force that some of its brighter moments garners. The opener falls into similar trouble as a stutter start with a piano ballad that doesn’t quite fit. But once the album hits its stride, as the multi-part track naming might suggest,
All Is Falling becomes James Blackshaw’s most wholly realized invention of his sound yet. He has turned his skill into something more challenging while remaining, at times becoming more, accessible.
