James Blackshaw - O True Believers

I ordered James Blackshaw's latest CD after seeing him at Green Man, and it arrived today. (I got it via Boa Melody Bar in Glasgow — linked from James's site — and I'd definitely recommend them/her for a wide range of folky/droney esoterica at cheap prices, in this case £8.50 inc p&p.) I'm on my second listen now and really enjoying it. I could barely hear James at the festival, and he said he could barely hear himself, but I had a hunch I would enjoy his stuff. He plays a 12-string guitar, but he makes it sound more like an Indian instrument than a European one.

I see James has played gigs on the same bill as a guy called Peter Wright, who sounds interesting from his write-up on Boa Melody Bar, so I may be trying him next.

I'm fascinated by the people who put out CDs like this (Important Records), the people who run the mail order (Boa Melody Bar, clearly a spare-time-on-the-kitchen-table job), and the artists themselves. Surely they can't be paying themselves even minimum wage. Are they all doing it just out of love? If so, here's some love right back at them...