In five short years, 12-string guitarist and composer James Blackshaw has not only been prolific, he's created for himself a musical catalog that is dazzling in its range, complexity, and mystery. In addition to releasing his own recordings, he's collaborated with vanguard lute master Jozef Van Wissem in the Brethren of the Free Spirit, and has appeared on Current 93's 2009 album Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain. In 2008, the venerable Tompkins Square indie re-released his previous catalog in the United States -- some of it was originally privately issued in very limited and/or vinyl-only editions. The label also released a then new effort, the beautiful Litany of Echoes, in the same year. The Glass Bead Game, issued on Michael Gira's Young God, named no doubt for the Hermann Hesse novel of the same name, is another step -- in fact, a leap -- forward. In addition to his own gorgeous 12-string playing, he has employed the talents of vocalist Lavinia Blackwell, and Current 93 members John Contreras on cello and Joolie Wood on violin. Blackshaw also plays harmonium and piano here. The pieces on this set are ambiguously titled with single words. The opener, Cross, is among the most startlingly beautiful pieces he's written. A reverbed 12-string plays a series of repetitive phrases as the strings play harmonic drones in the backdrop, propelling the sense of motion on until the guitar begins its melodic journey through the foreground, repeating the original phrase often enough to keep the listener grounded even as the lyric nature of the overdubbed guitars drones and pines away at a complex and haunting yet springlike melody. Bled is a sparser piece. The guitar, kissed with reverb and in places overdubbed, is accompanied by a harmonium playing a single chord as it begins a slow but methodical journey toward the center of a maelstrom that embodies everything from rags and blues to even Eastern folk styles in its complex, contrapuntal melody.

1		Cross
2		Bled
3		Fix
4		Key
5		Arc