12/16/2023 0 Comments Ryley walker reviewTempos 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. Instead, he’s made his most assured, most direct album since 2015’s Primrose Green.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. Ryley Walker could have continued with the disjointed style of Deafman Glance. The album ends with the similarly delicate, poised “Shiva With Dustpan”. “A Lenticular Slap” is proggier but in the same vein. The string-infused “Rang Dizzy” is lovely, shimmering like light seen through swaying branches. Ultimately, Course In Fable elegantly distils all that he has been so far. Walker’s playing has the math-rock fidgetiness and twists of album producer/engineer John McEntire’s Tortoise, but this is an overtly poppy album. But really, the self-issued Course In Fable is much more about the song than the fragmented Deafman Glance and the circular compositions of its predecessor Golden Sings That Have Been Sung. Perhaps, too, there’s some Up On The Sun-era Meat Puppets in there. OK, album opener “Striking Down Your Big Premiere” is proggy and sports Steve Hackett-esque guitar. Indeed, as he did with his last solo album, 2018’s Deafman Glance, he’s said Genesis have fed into what’s heard. It’s impossible to listen to a new Ryley Walker album without thoughts turning to possible influences or trying to work out what he might be incorporating into his music. Next up, “Pond Scum Ocean” is more linear overall but odder: it evokes Flowers of Romance Public Image Ltd fused with and tempered by, again, John Martyn. Three-minutes, 30-seconds into the atmospheric, jazzy, King Crimson-meets-John Martyn nugget “Clad With Bunk” a sudden blast of “Spirit in the Sky” fuzz guitar opens the door on the song’s freak-out coda, a hard-edged outro nodding towards Swedish psych-heads Dungen.
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