Hymns

The album The Watchers features only four songs. Those four songs are played by James Blackshaw on 12-string guitar and Lubomyr Melnyk on piano. The latter is a Ukrainian in his mid-60s. The former is a Brit in his early-30s.

Blackshaw is one of my most favorite guitarists. He plays the 12-string acoustic more dramatically than I have ever heard anyone else play it. Listening to any of his many records is a fascinating experience. Those records have grown from him and his guitar only at first to evolve to more instrumentation and experimentation. His new records are always something I look forward to and seek out.

His latest is a collaboration with Mr. Melnyk. I am not familiar with his work; I went to wikipedia to find out who he is. Describing his style is best left to the entry:

is a composer and pianist who pioneered 'continuous music' which requires a totally new technique of piano playing, based on extremely rapid notes and note-series that create a "tapestry of sound" usually with the sustain pedal held down to generate overtones and sympathetic resonances. These overtones blend or clash according to the harmonic changes. The technique of mastering his complex note patterns and speeds makes his music difficult for the normal pianist. Melnyk's personal sense of harmony and melodic flow often create a sombre, stately effect. He writes mostly for the piano although several chamber and orchestral works exist.

This makes him a perfect counterpart for Blackshaw. With him, the music is not necessarily rooted in the technicality of the playing. What's remarkable, for me at least, is the exquisiteness of the playing. It's beauty through strings. It is the establishment of mood, of a presence that shimmers through the melodies and the notes. About a year ago I shared Blackshaw's playing with my oldest nephew, who countered with another guitar player he felt was better. I long forgot who it was because it was obvious to me that this second player may have had the virtuosity, but had none of the the passion that music like this requires. When it's just you and your guitar creating a lush landscape, you need to have that extra something swelling at the seams, taking the music to the level it is clamoring for. Blackshaw does that better than anybody else I have heard. And he finds the perfect compliment in Mr. Melnyk.


The collaboration is called The Watchers. It is four songs, three of which extend past the ten minute mark. It is as lovely as I was hoping it to be. The guitar and the piano work around one another and create it's own unique world. It's not the kind of record you put on at a party. It's the kind of record you really listen to, that you let wash over you. I can even hear it playing with the top down winding along an ocean-side road. It's natural, almost organic in that it feels vibrant, alive. Somber and stately is how Melnyk's playing is described. In this case I don't find the music somber at all; stately it indeed is but I find it alive and joyous. A hymn to life.

It took me a while to actually get this record. I had ordered it from Amazon about a month ago but I kept getting emails saying we-still-can't-get-it. Finally I went directly to the label site and ordered it from there. A couple days later, wa-la!!

For whatever reason blogger.com won't let me embed the video, so here is a link to the first track off The Watchers: "Tascheter."