Albums
aus
Aidan Baker
Big Farm
The Black Dog
Blackshaw & Melnyk
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Clockwork
Matthew Collings
Coma
DJ Koze
Djrum
Eluvium
Fredda
Freska
Hanging Up The Moon
Jenny Hval
Jimpster
Rena Jones
Mark Lorenz Kysela
Leonhard + Red
Naph
Petrels
Piano Interrupted
Pursuit Grooves
David Rothenberg
Saltland
subtractiveLAD
Terminal Sound System
Andrew Weathers
Compilations / Mixes
Joy
Kumasi Music Volume 1
John Morales
One Point Three (A & B)
Maceo Plex
Soma Compilation 21
Steffi
EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Alter Echo & E3
Amiina
Badawi VS Ladyman
Bunnies & Bats
Diffraction of Sound EP
Gerwin
Heligoland
Hibea
The Monroe Transfer
Chris Octane
RSD
Katsunori Sawa
Andy Vaz
James Blackshaw & Lubomyr Melnyk:
The Watchers
Important Records
The combination of James Blackshaw and Lubomyr Melnyk is a pairing so natural it seems inevitable, especially when Melnyk's so-called ‘continuous music' style could be just as easily applied to Blackshaw's guitar playing (the pianist even proclaimed, after seeing Blackshaw play live, “You have invented continuous music for guitar!”). When the two first met in 2008, they hatched the idea of a future collaboration, which ultimately came to fruition in 2012 when they convened at the Vortex Jazz Cafe in London for a day of improvisations (spontaneous composition, if you prefer). With Blackshaw playing twelve-string acoustic guitar and Melnyk at the grand piano, no more than two takes per song were done and the entire session was over in six hours, with The Watchers' four long-form settings the wondrous result.
The album embarks in “Tascheter” on a sea of cascading ripples, the musicians pushing forward side-by-side, neither one dominant and Blackshaw's ringing patterns a fitting complement to Melnyk's elegant clusters. Throughout the thirty-six-minute recording, the two act as conduits for the music's seemingly unforced unfolding as it moves patiently through chord progressions and hints at melodic possibilities, subtly rising and falling as it does so. Neither musician solos in the conventional sense of the word, although one might just as easily say that both solo constantly; having said that, Blackshaw's crystal-clear tone does assert itself prominently during the latter half of “Venant” to a point where his repeating melody does stand out from the sonic mass.
Though each player is a master at generating swirling eddies of sound, the most affecting sections, interestingly enough, are those where the density diminishes and the music quietens. That happens most evidently during the album's second half, specifically during “Satevis,” where the slow tempo allows Melnyk's waterfalls to create an impressionistic mass against which the guitarist replies with chiming figures, but most memorably during the closing minute where the instruments' voices gradually scale back until they vanish altogether. The stately closer “Haftorang” is, if anything, even more elegant in the melancholy lines the musicians draw. It's during these moments when the beauty of the music comes most powerfully to the fore, and one leaves the album thinking that a better title might have been The Listeners, given the telepathic level shared by the musicians.May 2013