![]() This time he even got a member of Tortoise to produce.įor Course In Fable, Walker convened his longtime collaborators Bill MacKay, Andrew Scott Young, and Ryan Jewell at Soma Sound, the Portland outpost of former Tortoise percussionist John McEntire. Yet on the new Course In Fable, his first self-described “indie rock” album in three years, he continues to refine that eclectic Chicago sound he’s been edging toward all these years. Less than two months ago he dropped Deep Fried Grandeur, a live recording of his band’s onstage collaboration with Japanese psych kings Kikagaku Moyo. In 2020 he released far-out experimental improv records with Kendra Amalie and the team of J.R. He continues to explore a purer folk idiom on releases like 2019’s Little Common Twist with Charles Rumback. Like key inspiration Jim O’Rourke, Walker is far too adventurous a musician to be locked into one mode. By the time he moved to Brooklyn and dropped Deafman Glance in 2018, Walker was openly attempting to evoke the sensations of the city he had just left behind, chasing after “the sound of walking home late at night through Chicago in the middle of winter and being half-creeped out, scared someone’s going to punch you in the back of the head, and half in the most tranquil state you’ve been in all day, enjoying the quiet and this faint wind, and buses going by on all-night routes.” That album’s 1960s-vintage English folk stylings began to morph on his 2016 follow-up Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, incorporating more of the jazzy post-rock that has been a Chicago staple since the ’90s. Yet despite the band of Chicago jazz musicians he recorded it with, if Walker’s 2015 breakthrough Primrose Green sounded like anywhere in the world, it was the British Isles. ![]() Walker called the Windy City home for years, eagerly subsuming many corners of its music scene into his own creative DNA. Hook-heavy and topped by Walker’s ever-confident speak-sing and quirky storytelling, songs like “Axis Bent” and “Shiva with Dustpan” should provide thrilling moments to nerd out to when live shows return, along with epically zig-zagging math-folk sagas like “A Lenticular Slap.” Course In Fable signals a rebirth in sound, spirit, and purpose for Walker, and the myriad genres he’s hopped from are fully realized in one heady vision.Ever since Ryley Walker moved to New York, his albums have sounded unmistakably like Chicago. ![]() ![]() It’s as if Dave Matthews were under the influence of early Genesis (a Walker favorite) and The Sea and Cake.įittingly, it’s the MVP-caliber contributions of the latter’s John McEntire behind the boards-and on synthesizer, keyboards and vibraphone-that prove key in fleshing out the album’s lush, textural sheen. Consider the heart-on-sleeve lyrics of album standout, “Rang Dizzy”: “I am wise/ I am so fried/ Rang dizzy inside/ Fuck me, I’m alive.” Building on the prog-folk jams of albums past, Walker-joined by a stellar group of mostly Chicago cohorts in guitarist Bill MacKay, bassist Andrew Scott Young, drummer Ryan Jewell, and cellists Nancy Ives and Douglas Jenkins-is operating on a whole other spectrum. On his newest record, Course in Fable, Walker combines catharsis with-what else?-heroic feats of six-string slaying.įrom the moment the in-your-face, prog rock riff pyrotechnics are unleashed on “Striking Down Your Big Premiere,” the album’s arena-ready opening epic, the spirit uplift is firing on all cylinders. The mystical fingerpicking and majestic tunesmithery that define records like 2016’s Golden Sings That Have Been Sung and Deafman Glance, which arrived two years later, carved out a sound-exploring niche all his own. Pre-order buy pre-order buy you own this wishlist in wishlist go to album go to track go to album go to trackĪn ace folker, shredder, songwriter and improviser, the thirty-something New York City-via-Chicago guitarist Ryley Walker has left few musical stones unturned. ![]()
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