James Blackshaw - Litany of Echoes

He should get tea with Robert Fripp and figure something out.

a bunch of us are doing this

my friends are i guess you can say pitchfork darlings and they're looking into this

that's too bad, but i hope he gets in a better place -- his twitter account occasionally seems very tortured.
and yeah, i mean, i find it hard to amazing that anyone making any kind of even slightly left of mainstream music can make a decent living at it.

bummer. all is falling is a classic to me.

it ain't easy out there i'd imagine.

yeah, with people like him i get a skewed idea of their popularity, since we talk about them all the time on the ilx brigade thread. but then i go to a show and there's like a dozen people showing up. they'd probably make more cash staying home and teaching Black Keys songs to 11 year olds or something.

that's too bad, but i hope he gets in a better place -- his twitter account occasionally seems very tortured.

True. Now he seems to have deleted his account. Must be very recent.

Bummer indeed.

then i go to a show and there's like a dozen people showing up

that was quite possibly the precise attendance last time I saw Blackshaw play, maybe in 2014. my city of residence is infamously useless at actually turning out for anything good, that said

not to downplay a situation which is presumably a real wrench for him but I assumed he already had a dayjob tbh

The negative spiral he was getting into on twitter has been glum reading, glad he's taking some time away.

I interviewed him back in the day and he was a lovely fella. Sad to see how wrong things have gone. He'll be back, hopefully.

Have things gone so "wrong"? Or is he simply just looking to shift his priorities towards happiness (which doesn't even exclude making new music!)? TBF I haven't seen these twitter posts.

The tweets that stick in my mind were quite bitter-sounding abuse directed at the Wire magazine account

Your help needed!

Dear all,

As I mentioned before, some of my older albums are currently unavailable to stream/download digitally. These will soon be available again and in some cases reissued on vinyl via a new label.

The albums are:

Celeste, Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances, Sunshrine, The Cloud of Unknowing and Litany Of Echoes

However, unfortuntely some of the original artwork is missing.

If you have any of these albums on CD or LP in good condition and can scan the covers at a minimum of 1400 x 1400 at 300 DPI, I would be immensely grateful if you could send the artwork files to me at shoryob✧✧✧@hotm✧✧✧.c✧✧

Many thanks and best wishes,

James

original post with the actual e-mail address: http://jamesblackshaw.tumblr.com/post/156101738083/your-help-needed

It's ugly to contemplate, but he's not well, is he?

He posted this on Tumblr a couple weeks ago:

End of hiatus

It’s been a while. After three years of not performing live and nearly five years since my last solo album, I feel a new energy and desire to record again and return to the stage. I never meant to be particularly dramatic about announcing my hiatus from music. I never knew if I’d feel this way again, but I’m genuinely happy I do.

I hope to have some news regarding new recordings shortly.

In the meantime, if you’d like to book me to play a show, in any town or city in any country, please contact me directly at: shoryobuni AT hotmail DOT com

I’m also selling some guitars to help and finance the new album. And pay bills. You know how it goes.

Much love and hope to see you soon,

James

https://jamesblackshaw.tumblr.com/post/186607395763/end-of-hiatus#notes

ok, this is great news

nice, that is good to hear ...

So glad to hear he's okay, new music is just a bonus really

Wasn't he run down by the lack of money/record sales? I'm glad to have him back, his music is beautiful.

yeah, good news all round

https://jamesblackshaw.bandcamp.com/album/new-album-2023

sounds like he's had a tough few years

yeah, wow. I wonder how viable a career doing. what he does actually is even in the best of times.

Dammit---I know I once wrote a show preview that started out,

James Blackshaw started out in punk rock, but soon hit the harder stuff. Harder to get right, that is.

James Blackshaw, Fantomas: Le Faux Magistrat: new soundtrack 4 classic antihero, performed live by JB & fellow multi-instrumentalists, iron in the flow.

I just listened to Cloud of Unknowing again a few months ago and was wondering what happened to him. Really like that new track he shared.