Do you receive news alerts? I do.
These days they come rapid fire multiple times a day and when combined with other news sources it’s enough to make you sick. Sick, if you care about things like life, the planet, and the meaning of words. Oh, and truth.
So I am drawn, at times, to music that soothes these aching wounds. Music without words yet filled with beauty, humanness, emotion and meaning and I can think of no better recent example than guitarist James Blackshaw’s Unraveling In Your Hands, released on Amish Records late last year.
Featuring James Blackshaw on acoustic guitar, organ, and piano joined by Charlotte Glasson on string and wind instruments, Unraveling In Your Hands will appeal to Takoma Records lovers and the album marks Balckstraw’s return to music-making after ‘quitting’ in 2016.
“While I enjoy performing, my heart has always primarily belonged to writing and recording new music,” Blackshaw writes. “I wish releasing records alone could provide enough income to pay my bills and cover my rent, but it doesn’t, not remotely – not for me and not for the overwhelming majority of musicians and labels out there. Touring is a necessity and one which I am finding increasingly stressful and problematic.”
During his time away, Blackstraw’s fortunes fell apart as he shared on Tumblr:
I was beginning to take that job [cooking] even more seriously as a full-time gig when I slipped on some black ice and broke my right shoulder one evening in mid-December last year. Aside from coping with the pain, I found myself unable to move my arm, out of work with little support and at home caring for my dog Dexter, who was diagnosed with terminal liver disease a couple days after my fall and passed away this February.
For months I wondered when – and if – I’d be able to play guitar again and I wanted so desperately to throw myself back into music, to communicate something or anything at all about this overwhelming sense of loss I was feeling.
Yet here we are with 40 minutes of stunning masterful beauty. I bought the LP and encourage you to buy this record, too.