An innovative London-based guitarist and pianist, Blackshaw primarily plays an acoustic 12-string guitar. He has been compared to Bert Jansch, Robbie Basho, John Fahey, Jack Rose and Leo Kottke, but his sound, often modal and based on improvising across set themes, is entirely his own.

He released several limited CD-R albums as he began his career, including 2004's Celeste and Lost Prayers and Motionless Dancers, 2005's Sunshrine, and the live Waking into Sleep in 2006. Important Records issued O True Believers in 2006 after which Blackshaw moved to Tompkins Square Records, which released The Cloud of Unknowing in 2007 and began reissuing his back catalogue (Celeste and Sunshrine both reappeared in 2008). A second Tompkins Square album of new material, Litany of Echoes, was also issued in 2008.