Judging by its current roster, the risk to self-release paid off. While at this point, husky pants is home to albums by Chicago’s Luggage and Mukqs, an upcoming record from al Riggs, and Walker’s collaboration with one of his musical heroes, Gastr del Sol’s David Grubbs, in April, it was by far the label’s biggest release yet. (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. vĭeafman Glance by Ryley Walker RRyley Walkerįri 5/18 and Sat 5/19, 8 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W.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. No less significant is the growth of Walker’s songwriting, which extends to an almost cosmic openness on the harrowing “Accommodations” and a prog-flavored expansiveness on the breathlessly shifting “Telluride Speed.” The recording features a changing cast of players in the rhythm section, but for these special hometown shows he’ll lead a band with Sulpizio, Lepine, bassist Andrew Scott Young on bass, and Quin Kirchner and Mikel Avery on drums. The multilayered, rich arrangements on the new record effectively cradle his voice, underlining his most blase utterances and countering his most effusive shouts-the serene flute lines of Nate Lepine and the spacey synth accents contributed by Bitchin Bajas’ Cooper Crain interact beautifully with the probing, sometimes biting leads of Walker and his frequent collaborators, guitarists Bill MacKay and Brian Sulpizio. Walker’s singing is also at its best here it’s at once melodically precise and soulfully loose. Though for years he’s found a sweet spot in his performances, blending the jazz-folk splendor of John Martyn with the exploratory vibe of Tim Buckley and Tim Hardin, until Deafman Glance he hadn’t mastered that mix on recordings. But as much as Walker’s characters are uncertain and hobbled, he’s more assured and focused as a performer than ever. It’s hard to miss the biting humor when Walker sings, “Tripped over your coat / Quick exit now ruined” in “Can’t Ask Why,” where he can’t even pull off a smooth departure after a breakup. In most of the songs the narrator struggles with his decisions and fucks things up more often than not. Ryley Walker closes his new album Deafman Glance (Dead Oceans) with a tune that nails the existential turbulence that ripples through most of his songs: “Whenever I do my best, I will spoil with the rest,” he sings, acknowledging a self-destructive impulse that bleeds into his affairs, romantic and otherwise.
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