This album has been a long time coming, as Blackshaw has mostly been on an extended hiatus from performing and recording since 2016, as the eternal instability and financial stresses of life as a musician nudged him towards a life in the food scene instead. Eventually, however, his creative urges began stirring once more and he announced his return to music in 2019, but his plans took some serious hits from the pandemic, the deaths of a close friend and a beloved dog, and a broken shoulder along the way. Thankfully, he persevered regardless and Unraveling In Your Hands marks the first new James Blackshaw album since 2015’s Summoning Suns and it is a damn good one too. In fact, Blackshaw almost makes it seem like no time has passed at all, as these three pieces are as compositionally ambitious, virtuosic, and deliciously compelling as ever. While the centerpiece here is ostensibly the nearly 27-minute tour de force of the title piece, it is actually a shorter collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Glasson that steals the show for me.
In darkly amusing fashion, Blackshaw notes that the title piece was literally written “as a kind of endurance test,” as he pushed himself to his physical limit in the wake of his shoulder injury, as it temporarily seemed possible that he would never be able to play guitar again. I would not necessarily describe it as an endurance test on the listening end, but it does remind me a bit of the 1948 film The Red Shoes in which a ballerina acquires a cursed pair of shoes that enable her to dance brilliantly but also supernaturally force her to dance herself to death. As far as I know, Blackshaw himself is still alive and well, but “Unraveling In Your Hands” blows right past simply weaving a few gorgeous passages together and unfolds as an endlessly rippling and shapeshifting beast that simultaneously feels both freeform and incredibly intricate and complex. Impressively, Blackshaw recorded the whole thing in a single unedited take, which is presumably why it feels so vibrant and spontaneous. He mentions that some “flubs and hesitations” unavoidably crept into the piece, but I’ll be damned if I can find any significant missteps and probably wouldn't have cared much if I did. The overall effect is akin to Blackshaw having a guitar showdown with the devil at the proverbial crossroads, but continuing to play like a man possessed for another twenty minutes after resoundingly clowning his infernal adversary.
The album is rounded out by a pair of shorter, less technically demanding pieces. The closing “Why Keep Still?” was presumably the first piece that Blackshaw wrote for the album, as it was released when the then-nameless album was first announced last year. Unsurprisingly, it is the most “textbook Blackshaw” piece on the album (though the ascending piano melody gives it a more loosely radiant feel than usual). The other piece is a bit more divergent, however, and it is an absolute stunner. Named in loving tribute to his departed dog, “Dexter” is remarkably simple for a Blackshaw piece, as it is centered around little more than an organ drone and a warm chord progression, but the harmonies are bittersweet and lovely and Glasson’s sliding, smearing, whistling, and murmuring strings transform the central motif into something fluidly sensuous. In fact, it is easily one of the single most beautiful pieces that Blackshaw has ever recorded, which is doubly significant given the absence of any dazzling fretboard mastery. While I am sincerely thrilled that Blackshaw’s shoulder eventually healed enough for him to regain his usual technical brilliance and certainly appreciated the go-for-broke performance of the title piece, it is easy to take for granted that he is also quite a soulful composer with a great ear for poignant melodies and cool transitions and that his guitar is merely one tool in a wider arsenal. This album is an extremely welcome and oft-brilliant return.
