The Whiskey will tonight play host to a triple bill of rare stringed talent with the arrival of UK guitarist James Blackshaw, Dutch lutenist Jozef van Wissem and Dublin musician Cian Nugent.  

Headliner Blackshaw has, with the release of his 2007 album The Cloud of Unknowing, come to prominence as a unique 12-stirng talent, one whom has taken the blueprint of John Fahey and his Takoma Records label and reinvented it for a new generation, including Nugent, himself an immensely talented exploratory guitarist whose playing is rooted in pre-war blues, Appalachian string bands and the Takoma tradition.

Despite posing the ability to mine wonderfully realised hypnotic melodies from dense clusters of notes and chords, there is still a space afforded by Blackshaw to his material that belies the intricate delicacies inherent in his traditional musical melting pot as he effortlessly crosses boundaries, boarders and the heritages of Fahey and the minimalist composers such as Reich and Glass .

His music is ethereal, ambiguous even. It is a traditional music of sorts, influenced and informed by a range of cultures and flawless techniques culled from a myriad range of musical sources. Indebted to but certainly never aping his heroes, Blackshaw has crafted a unique area within the realms of solo guitar playing that he, along with just a few precious others, now occupies – that small circle, which also includes the likes of Jack Rose and Glen Jones, have taken the tradition and heritage of John Fahey and his Takoma Records roster  which counted among its ranks Leo Kottke, Peter Lang and Robbie Basho, and progressed it to create something that is both strangely familiar and yet also utterly unique in its execution.

“Something just kind of stuck with. Around 2002, I found myself not in any bands and alone myself one day, I re-listened to the few Fahey recordings I had and I loved how raw they sounded and the idea that so much could be got out of one guitar with no other embellishment or distractions from other instruments. It just made sense to me and I started concentrating on playing acoustic guitar, using open-tunings and finger-picking in a style that I’ve been developing since and I just found the whole process very rewarding: that I could construct very complete, albeit minimal, pieces on my own with little other fuss.

“I took up playing 12-string guitar only a few months after I started finger-picking 6-string. When I first had the chance to pick one up, it just seemed very natural and I knew it would fit the kind of compositions I wanted to write perfectly. The instrument almost plays itself. The resonance and overtones that are produced when it’s played in such a way almost dictate my playing style and not the other way around and I wanted to really go with that, concentrating on my right-hand technique much more than most guitar players would and almost using the open strings as if I were playing a grand-piano in a large hall or church.”

Nugent experienced a similar epiphany when he first encountered the music of Fahey, having previously plied his trade as a more traditional blues guitarist. “John Fahey was someone that I found after a while listening to the blues stuff and it was quite a revelation at the time. I had been writing these funny little solo guitar things before that, but I was quite secretive and didn’t really feel as if it was allowed. Hearing Fahey sort of gave me the permission to not have to sing, to do things that are more expressive and aren’t so straight forward. He also showed me that it could be a tool for composition and opened up classical music to me. I don’t hold him on a pedestal or want to recreate his music though, I have a lot of problems with the way he went about some things and I wouldn’t listen to him that much these days, he gave me the tools and I want to work with them on my own, every generation has to move on from the previous or what’s the point in doing it.