First James Blackshaw album in nine years. A tremendous comeback from someone who had basically walked away from music in 2016. Blackshaw returned from his hiatus in 2019 with “Why Keep Still?” a gorgeous track that teased the possibility of new recordings. In 2023, he sent a message through his Bandcamp to announce that he was working on a new album—one that he wanted to release at the end of that year—and offered it for pre-order. Along with the announcement of the album, Blackshaw gave a brief, heartfelt account of what he’d been up to in the last few years. Working, he said, in bar and kitchen jobs, and finally finding something that enjoyed: cooking food, owning his own business. Every time he thought about getting back into music, “something would dishearten me,” he wrote. The 2021 passing of a close friend, John Hannon—who recorded much of Blackshaw’s music—particularly affected him. Also, in December 2022, Blackshaw slipped on some black ice and broke his shoulder. Blackshaw wrote that during this time he was out of work and dealing with pain from the injury, but also caring for his dog, Dexter, who’d been diagnosed with liver disease and who passed away later that winter.
After fully recovering from the shoulder injury, Blackshaw threw himself into the new album. Throughout 2023, Blackshaw worked and provided updates. Then, in 2024, in the middle of November: the new album arrived, suddenly, miraculously.
The title track, a 27-minute masterpiece, is incredibly beautiful. Meditative, melancholy, it reminds me of his earlier work, particularly “The Cloud of Unknowing.” “Unraveling In Your Hands,” is a thoughtful, multi-part suite mixed with flights into the atmosphere. Songs nested within songs. A parenthesis that opens in one section and closes minutes later. Riffs, harmonics, blizzards of notes. “Unraveling In Your Hands” is so big that it’s easy to let it flow over you, but the nature of the music—it’s tactile origin—keeps you centered on it as a listener. Like with listening to, say, Colin Stetson, there’s no way to ignore that this is music produced by a human being and an instrument—you hear Stetson’s breath through the sax, you hear Blackshaw’s fingers on the strings.
“Dexter” is a moving lamentation for the dog Blackshaw cared for through liver disease. While “Unraveling In Your Hands” is a stunner, “Dexter” might actually be the most beautiful piece of music on the album. Strings, woodwinds, organ, stretching, shifting, like layers of water flowing over each other in a river. Like a braided, multiplanar version of “Vorspiel” from “Das Rheingold.”
“Why Keep Still?” closes the album. Of the three tracks, this one is most like classic Blackshaw: spectacular musicianship in service to a compelling and catchy song. Everything that he does so well is on display here, the elaboration of complex ideas on the guitar supported by beautiful piano playing, the willingness to launch into breathtaking passages of unexpectedly emotional playing.
It’s stunning to hear Blackshaw come back like this, not only making great music again but something truly outstanding. It’s the kind of album that makes you remember everything that you thought was magical about an artist when you first heard them. People do this all the time, and yet it’s always good, always thrilling to see someone beat back the shittiness of this world to make something beautiful.