James Blackshaw

Another Tompkins Square reissue of early James Blackshaw material, and this is about as early as it gets: Celeste originally surfaced on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon a full five years ago and set the blueprint fr just about every solo recording he's made since. While the first part of the album finds Blackshaw in solo 12-string mode, the second deviates from the well-trodden Takoma-styled path and heads into an effects-laden drone composition. This sort of style-melding approach would come to characterise more mature works in Blackshaw's canon (by the time we get to 2007's The Cloud Of Unknowing the guitarist's 12-string skills had become integrated with more composed, song-like constructions), but there's something particularly compelling about hearing such a raw talent in its incubative period.