Only a bit more charged up.įollowing up with ‘Sullen Mind’, another song of his most recent album Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, the band darkened the tone.
Surround those words with delicate fingerpicked patterns and beachy drum shuffles and you have a concoction of actual 60s style folk rock. Lyrics like ‘I’d buy you a drink, my credit is quite shit’ and ‘Come to think of it, I think my dad wanted a daughter’ are both modern and relatable. Similarly, even if the opening of ‘The Roundabout’ is an idyllic, British pastoral exploration, Walker remains fully aware of the present lingo. Indeed, his very appearance is a bit of contradiction, as he comes striding onto stage, rambling a bit about it being Saturday night. At the Rialto Hall for POP Montreal 2016, with just an acoustic guitar and his two touring band members, a stand-up bass (Anton Hatwich) and drummer (Frank Rosaly), Walker created enough noise to resemble a post-rock show. However, to listen to Ryley Walker live gave me a spine-tingling sensation of going back in time. Photo credit: Joel Makĭon’t get me wrong, I love both types of music. It's a solid effort even with its flaws.Ryley Walker Rialto Hall. This is a snapshot of where he is at the moment. That said, despite his growing confidence and excellent production and arrangements, the singing and lyric writing still need work. On one level, Golden Sings That Have Been Sung delivers the most advanced music Walker's released to date. There are a couple of duds here, including the dirge "The Great and Undecided" (that pays self-indulgent homage to Mark Kozelek's journal-entry confessional songwriting). It's a modal vamp that doesn't really go anywhere - though there is a nice clarinet interlude near the end - but it doesn't need to its deep-nod vibe is enough. Walker's lyric juxtaposes pain disguised as self-deprecating humor (think Mark Eitzel) at a local watering hole: "Can I buy you a drink/Though my credit is quite shit.And you cry like you've never seen water/And come to think of it I think my dad wanted a daughter." Closer "Age Old Tale" is the longest and loosest thing here, with jazz overtones and sweeping autoharp - evoking Alice Coltrane's early Impulse! recordings - and engages Anton Hatwich's rumbling bassline as strummed electric and acoustic guitars move at a cough syrup pace. "The Roundabout" is a midtempo folk-rock tune built around a single - and yes, circular - guitar vamp. "Sullen Mind" is a more full-bodied articulation of sounds Walker's explored before, and features stellar interplay between electric piano, droning acoustic guitar, and Brian Sulpizio's poignant electric lead lines. "A Choir Apart" offers a shifting dynamic with its ominous tom-toms that bridge modal psychedelic chamber pop and more experimental rock terrain (… la Tortoise).
Clarinet, electric piano, and lap steel guitar (all from Bach) wrap themselves around gentle percussion and fingerstyle acoustic guitar. The vibe is breezy, quirky, lithe pop with tight charts offering interlocking grooves in shifting time signatures. Opener "The Halfwit in Me," with its deadpan title and lyrics, underscores the influence of Jim O'Rourke and Gastr del Sol. Most of the remaining cast (also Chicagoans) have worked with Walker before. The set was produced by multi-instrumentalist/arranger Leroy Bach (Wilco, Liz Phair, Rob Mazurek). He's not showcasing his playing abilities as much here, but readily evokes the Chicago scene of the '90s that gave us Gastr del Sol, the Sea and Cake, and Tortoise. These eight songs offer more proof of Walker's evolution as a writer, and his referential focus has shifted again. Golden Sings That Have Been Sung offers another change-up. A year later, on Primrose Green, the American primitive notions slipped from the radar, but the Brit folk had been fully integrated, and his love of Tim Buckley, John Martyn, and Terry Callier were woven into more expansively textured songs.
RYLEY WALKER THE ROUNDABOUT LYRICS FULL
His musical structures were loose and full of improvisation. When singer, songwriter, and guitarist Ryley Walker released 2014's All Kinds of You, his playing style openly referenced Jack Rose, the "American Primitive" Takoma sound, and British innovators such as Davy Graham and Bert Jansch.
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