![]() ![]() I’m happy it came out but there’s no way I could do that now – I’m getting too fat for the cool pants.”Įxtricated from that sound, his creativity flourished through a string of studio albums, collaborations and live records – trading pastoral classicism for urban experimentalism and diving into the intersections between noise, free jazz, folk and psychedelia. “I’m a pretty self-aware and poor salesman, so I immediately shit on it. “That unfiltered hate I had towards it was maybe a bit childish,” he says. Walker quickly soured on its success – the Chicago city kid miscast as a Nick Drake-style rustic troubadour – and in interviews called it “a terrible record”. In 2015, Walker’s second album, Primrose Green, became an unexpected critical hit for its faithful, if overly nostalgic, rendering of that era. Pre-order it here, and seriously, follow the guy on Twitter.That was until Walker’s interest in fingerpicking led him to the UK folk rock canon of the 70s – the era when artists such as Bert Jansch and Fairport Convention made visionary, stirring records from the raw material of traditional English song – and he began writing and recording in that style. That’s the sound I hear, all the time, ringing in my ears.ĭeafman Glance is out 5/18 on Dead Oceans. Chicago sounds like a train constantly coming towards you but never arriving. And I think I succeeded in that way - it’s got some weird instrumentation on there, and some surreal far-out words. I was always trying to make something like this I guess, trying to catch up with my imagination. I just wanted to make something weird and far-out that came from the heart finally. I didn’t want to be jammy acoustic guy anymore. I wanted to make something deep-fried and more me-sounding. I was under a lot of stress because I was trying to make an anti-folk record and I was having trouble doing it. There’s a looseness to some of the songs I guess, but I didn’t want to rely on just hanging out on one note. I think more than anything the thing to take away from this record is that I appreciate what improv and jamming and that outlook on music has done for me, but I wanted rigid structure for these songs. Just listen to lead single “Telluride Speed” and see if you don’t catch my drift - and if you aren’t ridiculously stoked to hear the rest. Best of all, no matter how far out there Walker’s influences get, each complex song-suite remains deeply approachable. Not that Walker’s latest could be contained to one geographical or stylistic reference point: There are shades of Nick Drake, Jim O’Rourke, King Crimson, Steely Dan, Beck’s Sea Change, Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born, and a whole CD tower full of Mudvayne psych, folk, prog, jazz, and post-rock records. “That’s the sound I hear, all the time, ringing in my ears.” “Chicago sounds like a train constantly coming towards you but never arriving,” Walker writes. ![]() In a statement accompanying the album announcement, Walker says he hoped to get away from jamming and improv this time around in favor of carefully arranged compositions: “I didn’t want to be jammy acoustic guy anymore.” He also aimed to make something “more Chicago-y sounding,” which he’s definitely achieved the Midwest metropolis’ rich musical history is an unmistakable element of Deafman Glance’s exquisite genre cocktail. Whether I think he’s a fraud three months from now remains to be seen, but for now, Deafman Glance sounds like his masterpiece. I’ve heard it already and can confirm my first impressions of the final product match Walker’s. The LP in question is called Deafman Glance, and it’s coming in May. Sitting on said record for 3 months: “I’m a fraud and death can’t come quick enough” Getting record master back: “I’ve finally done it. And the most brutally honest reflection of them all pertains to his own new album: Did you know Ryley Walker’s Twitter is lit? The psychedelic chamber-folk virtuoso’s feed presents a delightful collection of music- tangential drug commentary, appreciations of garbage American restaurants and the weight gain they entail, flashbacks to his Christian- rock youth and ’90s fashion sense, and brutally honest reflections on the music industry.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |