Ryley Walker (Jansch-style vocals, finger-picking folk guitar with double bass and violins grooves)

vice would know

sorry that was a flip comment, but I find this characterization very upsetting

Whenever someone plays classical music I say, “hell yeah the verve bittersweet symphony”

— Ryley walker (@ryleywalker) September 21, 2018

lmao

So yeah, saw him Friday night with Trad Gras och Stenar and Endless Boogie (both very great) as openers. He's got an extremely good band together backing and each individual song performance was pretty sharp, understated but not inaudible singing, good sense of ensemble performances all around -- my friend Paul and I traded thoughts back and forth, he mentioned Prefab Sprout, John Martyn and Jeff Buckley, I was thinking of late 90s indie-goes-prog in turn. His loud and exuberant-but-verging-on-obnoxious between song stuff, well, maybe I need to be his age or something. (That said, as I told Paul, we're not talking 90s/00s Anton from Brian Jonestown Massacre here.)

Also he just announced a full cover album of Dave Matthews Band's The Lillywhite Sessions. Whatever works for ya.

i've heard it, it's very good

Between that and Lady Bird I'm...not looking forward to DMB becoming a new generation's Steely Dan or something.

i don't think it's gonna be a thing

I feel better now!

Yr gettin old ted!

Yeah fuck that Ted guy.

i mean, I Was A Teenage DMB Fan. i've since realized most of the music is not very good at all! but something about the lillywhite sessions still fascinates, in that 1) matthews shelved it bc it was too dour and ended up recording a shitty happy album in like nine days with glen ballard and he put that out instead 2) its dourness means there's a lot less dumbassery than on your typical dmb album, and the melodies are for the most part really gorgeous. walker's rearrangements are both really radical and yet true to the original songs. it's very very very jazzy

i've never heard the DMB album he is covering (i hate the DMB, they are so bad and hated), but Ryley's version is pretty OK. a weird thing to do for sure, but oh well!

I agree DMB has a lot of gorgeous melodies. Most people don't like the vocals and the jam band delivery.

lol

If I get on here and say “I just boofed a Habenero Garlic Boneless Wing™️ covered in cocaine...uuuuhhh David Bowie is bullshit but Jars of Clay totally slaps dawg, don’t sleep” then people will respect me

— the modern folk (@themodernfolk) October 25, 2018

also, make good music

Listening to "In Castle Dome" and all I hear is "In Castleton"

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/bb/9b/df3ae03ae7a0e5de6cddd110.L.jpg

good for him, excited to see what he does next

https://uproxx.com/indie/ryley-walker-interview-addiction-mental-health/

saw him w/ ryan jewell + special guest neil hagerty last week, 40-minute psych jam.
his new instrumental LP w/ charles rumback is fantastic.

oh yeah you can check out the walker / jewell / hagerty jam here: https://www.osirispod.com/podcasts/beyond-the-pond/beyond-the-pond-episode-083-indie-jam-basement-sesh-w-ryley-walker-ryan-jewell/

Glad to see he's in a much better place, I had no idea how dark of a place he had gotten too. Just goes to show you how insidious depressing and addition can be. You'd think opening for a guy like Richard Thompson would be a highlight for a guy like Ryley, but he was suffering so much.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of love for them on ilx, but his set with Garcia Peoples backing him up on the Rocks Off Concert Cruise was great.

i really enjoyed the rumback lp xxp

great interview, sounds like he was really suffering glad he found his way out

Hadnt heard of this guy at all but checked out the rumback album on spotify today and i'm really digging, cool stuff

he's definitely had a cool trajectory this decade! very glad he is doing better mentally now ...

Of all his great projects lately, I'm surprised by how much I keep gong back to that Dave Matthews thing.

he was good at first but soooooooooo Bert Jansch feels like he has more of a unique voice now, feels like he's in the Chicago rock tradition now

I'm in that weird interzone of being a bit of Walker sceptic while continually checking everything he does. It's like I'm waiting for him to *become* or whatever; he's clearly got all the talent. The Rumback album is sounding excellent.

this tape sounds great http://www.nyctaper.com/2019/03/ryley-walker-steve-gunn-march-5-2019-union-pool/

This record he did with JR Bohannon and Ben Greenberg is pretty cool:

https://huskypantsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/for-michael-ripps

new album 'Course in Fable' coming out in April

stream a track here: https://ryleywalker.bandcamp.com/album/course-in-fable

Prolific eh? I quite like his collab with Kikagaku Moyo too. Mmm krauty.

it's great! just got the vinyl in the mail. it's on his label husky pants. beautiful record, lathe cut by Bob Weston of Shellac, sounds great

new one was produced by John McEntire of Tortoise, love Ryley shedding his folk affectations and embracing being a Chicago Rock Dude

I'm not familiar with his solo stuff but I checked out his Kikagaku Moyo collab on a whim and it's just the kind of East-West psych jamming that I can listen to endlessly.

New one is great — maybe his best? Very gastr del sol but with Ryley’s oddball personality all over it. Some really lush moments mixed in with pure weirdness. Band sounds amazing.

Ooo do you have a promo? I'm looking forward to him stepping up the prog on this one given how much he's been raving about Genesis for the past couple years

I'm not familiar with his solo stuff but I checked out his Kikagaku Moyo collab on a whim and it's just the kind of East-West psych jamming that I can listen to endlessly.

― pomenitul, Sunday, February 14, 2021 10:18 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

he's really changed, i think there are things to recommend from every era, but yeah started out as extremely earnest Bert Jansch/Pentangle worship then gradually starts getting weirder and incorporating more mid 90s post rock type vibes and jazzy feels (john martyn influence maybe?)

did a cover of some unreleased (I think?) Dave Matthews Band record that actually turned out way better than it had any right to

Cool, I'm definitely going to start exploring his output. Seems like there's a lot going on here and most of it is to my liking (on paper, at least).

he did a collaboration with Bill MacKay that I never heard, maybe tyler did

I think Deafman Glance is where he started really leaning into the Chicago post-rock vibe and is one of the best rock records of the last few years. It's so damn TASTY

i love all his stuff. rang dizzy is great, excited for new album

i love the album but if you put ‘primrose green’ on for someone who hadn’t heard him before there’s no way they would guess it was from the current century lol

the bill mackay collab is really great

I feel like it's worth noting that RW is a huge Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 fan, speaking of 90s post-rock influences

he did a collaboration with Bill MacKay that I never heard, maybe tyler did

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, February 14, 2021 12:49 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

He did twice actually! Of the two I'm more familiar with Land of Plenty and I return to it ALL the time.

love the dave matthews record. love the thinking fellers t shirt. love the leonard cohen trolling.

i only liked about half of "golden songs" but that aside dude has an impressive hit rate

Ooo do you have a promo? I'm looking forward to him stepping up the prog on this one given how much he's been raving about Genesis for the past couple years

yeah there's definitely a genesis-y flavor at times ...

He's been a really interesting guy to follow for the last 6-7 years. The first time I saw him it felt like more a sum-of-influences, though super talented and energetic. But by 2nd time he was much more sounding like his own thing, and the 3rd time a couple years ago he was, as they say, really on his shit. I loved that album, Deafman Glance. Looking forward to the new one. And need to check out the Kikagaku Moyo too.

Hmmmm. I really struggled with Deafman Glance... maybe I should revisit.

I have one Mackey collab that I enjoy. He was great live. I'll definitely check out this new one.

Looking forward to this one, he’s been in a roll for the past few years. I do like that he’s turning into a full-on Chicago post-rock dude only after moving to NYC.