Really, really, really getting into James Blackshaw's The Cloud of Unknowing. How can this guy be so young and from London? This and his previous album, O True Believers sounds like the music made by someone who left human company behind twenty years ago and has spent his days on the edge of the Mojave desert with just the stars, his twelve-string and some early Tacoma records to keep him company. It sounds too vast, too elemental to be made in Greater London. The influence of Leo Kottke and Robbie Basho is deeply evident but there are other things here, more ancient and more modern that create an accessible, enveloping sound that's immense, lustrous and detailed like a cathedral made of jewels and clouds, which pulls you in, lifts you up into a realm of beauty, joy and sometimes sadness and leaves you wanting to sell 95% of the contrived nonsense in your CD collection and buy an acoustic guitar. Awesome in every sense of the word.