TOTW: James Blackshaw & Lubomyr Melnyk_Tascheter

In One Day James Blackshaw & Lubomyr Melnyk have improvised a beautiful album in The Watchers.

On the linked site for the album James Blackshaw quotes: “We set up, Lubomyr at the grand piano, me directly facing him with my 12-string guitar and began. I would retune at random between songs and together we would find interesting chord progressions, hints of melodies and ways in which to weave those immense overtones that Lubomyr is able to generate on the piano with those of my guitar. No more than two takes per song. Improvisation, spontaneous composition, whatever you want to call it. Either way, it truly felt as if the piano and guitar were as one – inseparable, parts of a bigger whole, a means by which for two people to make one sound. It never felt forced and never less than engaging. Lubomyr was always humble, jovial and open to ideas. The whole session lasted six hours.”

In those Six hours these 4 tracks were recorded and have intrigued me into many listens. What starts as almost chaos, slowly drifts in and out of these beautiful melodies, unpredictable but unforced, glimpses at true majesty.  The continuous playing of the guitar and Piano Creates this element of complexity, making it hard to attach your attention to any element for to long or even at all. This makes repeat listens highly rewarding as I still notice things in my 17th listen to the album. You truly get as much out of their music as you put in.

Tascheter is the opening track from the watchers: