(He listened to the audiobook of NOFX’s autobiography during the drive.) And when it came time to release the record, Walker, whose contract with Dead Oceans had run out, chose his own label. It was demoed in Chicago last June and recorded a year ago in Portland, Walker driving across the country in two days by himself. The start-to-finish Course In Fable must have been similar to what the Empty Bottle set was to Walker and his band: forward, fast-charging, and fun. Tempos change amiably on the skronking “Axis Bent” and jazzy “Clad With Bunk”, Walker letting out a “woo!” on the latter to introduce serious riffing. The wonderfully titled one-take “A Lenticular Slap” jams for a couple minutes before going into its verses and swaying chorus, circular guitar rhythms atop mathy stop-starts. Though it’s rife with the same self-deprecating humor and references to past drug binges as his legendary Twitter account, Course In Fable sports positive vibes, especially in the dynamism of the instrumentation. Working with heavyweights like Tortoise’s John McEntire and string musician Douglas Jenkins (who provided all the string arrangements on the record), Walker’s latest is his most confident record. It was simultaneously the most technically impressive and loosest I’ve ever seen Walker, the same combination that renders Course In Fable his best album to date. And in revisiting his older catalog, Walker went full-on indie jam ( Deafman Glance’s “Opposite Middle”), prog (“Telluride Speed”), and prog-folk ( Golden Sings That Have Been Sung’s “The Halfwit In Me). They brought an immediately fried, buzzy vibe on “Striking Down Your Big Premiere”, Walker and MacKay in tune with their solos, and cooled off with the limber, gentle “Rang Dizzy”. Walker played with a band made up of guitarist Bill Mackay, bassist Andrew Scott Young (two main contributors to April’s Course In Fable, his first LP released on his own label husky pants records), and drummer Quin Kircher. Walker may tip his hat to Chicago's experimental underground or prog behemoths like Genesis, but with this release, he's very much his own man.Earlier this month, headlining the Empty Bottle’s fall block party, Ryley Walker joked, “How far did they have to go for me to headline?” to a crowd of fans who loved him for his banter just as much as his playing. “Osees weren’t available?” Funny enough, the music ended up just as raucous as those San Francisco psych rockers. And yet, for all of its tricky rhythmic shifts and dazzling guitar work, Course in Fable is rife with appealing melodies and quirky, head-turning lyrics ("walk a victory lap around the whale shit tombs") lending the record its own air of distinction. With opaque lyrics that suggest hidden meanings and a husky delivery recalling mid-'70s John Martyn, he brings a casual elegance to what may be his most technically complex songs to date. The musical interplay between Walker, guitarist Bill McKay (another Chicagoan), bassist Andrew Scott Young, and drummer Ryan Jewell is simply electric, and his increasing confidence as an ace bandleader makes it all feel effortless. While Walker now resides in New York and McEntire in Portland, they meet (figuratively and sonically) in the middle with an impressive set that melds the former's inventive prog-pop with the latter's detailed hi-fi indie fusion, sounding like nothing from either coast.Īlbum opener "Striking Down Your Big Premiere" leans heavily into its progressive nature, shifting seamlessly between time signatures and conjoined micro-suites to create a surprisingly effective whole. His emergence in 2014 as a much-heralded folk troubadour grew over subsequent years into a snaky path of idiosyncratic left turns, somehow leading back (albeit transformed) to the influence of his hometown. The pairing of these two Chicago eccentrics from different generations is an inspired one and makes a certain amount of sense at this point in Walker's career. An artful nexus of impressionistic songwriting, prog-rock vision, and melodic nuance, these seven tracks shimmer and roil in hi-fi glory, thanks in part to the efforts of veteran producer/engineer John McEntire ( Tortoise, the Sea and Cake). At some point during this busy stretch, he also found time to compose and record some of his most intricate and satisfying solo material to date, released here as Course in Fable, Walker's fifth album. Since his last proper solo release in 2018, Ryley Walker has certainly maintained his sense of adventure, remaking a lost Dave Matthews Band album, releasing his second instrumental collaboration with drummer Charles Rumback, and getting deep into the weeds with Japanese psych combo Kikagaku Moyo.
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