James Blackshaw
Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death
IMPREC355 CD/LP
"One of the best and most original instrumentalists in the new, acoustic renaissance" - David Fricke, Rolling Stone
Yellow and/or white vinyl available for the first 200 mailorder customers
Important is proud to welcome back James Blackshaw for his first full length on Important since his breakthrough album O True Believers was released on the label in 2006. James has since forged a remarkable career achieving critical praise for his dexterity, his deep, connected songwriting and his beautiful arrangement. Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death is available on CD & LP. LP pressed in an edition of 1000. Limited stock of color vinyl for mailorder customers.
Written at a time of great emotional disquiet, the hauntingly beautiful and bittersweet ninth
full-length studio album, 'Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death', from British guitarist-composer
James Blackshaw was recorded at Soma Electronic Music Studios, Chicago in December 2011 by engineer
Andrew Hernandez (Balmorhea). The six original pieces contained on the album (whose titles are lovingly
misappropriated from those of short stories by the late, great science fiction author James Tiptree Jr
AKA Alice B. Sheldon,) are based alternately around nylon-string classical guitar and grand piano, with
spare and subtle vibraphone and B3 organ parts overdubbed by Blackshaw himself. Geneviève Beaulieu
(Menace Ruine/Preterite) adds her stunning and powerful voice and words to track 'And I Have Come Upon
This Place By Lost Ways'. 'Love Is The Plan' is an incredibly warm and intimate recording and perhaps
Blackshaw's most concise, consistent and overtly melodic to date.
TRACK LISTING
Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
And I Have Come Upon This Place By Lost Ways
A Momentary Taste Of Being
We Who Stole The Dream
The Snows Are Melted, The Snows Are Gone
REVIEWS
Pitchfork 7.9
"Blackshaw is one of the most interesting modern composers, one who leaps and bounds with every release. On this new one, he continues his flirtation with piano but mainly lets his masterful John Fahey-styled finger-picking do the talking. His glistening arpeggios are technically brilliant, but Blackshaw forgoes the guitar pyrotechnics and instead highlights his compositional skill. Menace Ruine's Geneviève Beaulieu provides vocals on "And I Have Come Upon This Place by Lost Ways," which fits Blackshaw's ivory-tickling like a glove. 9/10"
Montreal Mirror
