Ryley walker jam on6/20/2023 ![]() Walker’s adept flourishes on the guitar are every bit as pretty as a flower in the morning dew and the talented jazz musicians he’s assembled around him buzz around him with earnestness of bees flying among the flowers getting their fill of pollen and nectar, two companions whose beauty relies on the cooperation of the other. The album awakens with the teeming warmth of “The Halfwit In Me” that soothes the soul. He seems to have taken a deep breath and centered himself in the music of his mind. It is calmer, with less movement, easier to relax with. The album is not really introspective, trying to decode the processes of Walker’s life, as much as it is just present in his mind at the time. “Golden Sings That Have Been Sung” is crafted from a return to home to reconnect with what is going on with yourself. The latter is a colorful, surreal landscape of strawberry moons and a golden river that flows from the sun, a snapshot of something created from the mind’s eye. The former is a double-exposure shot of Walker awash in green landscape, a fairy tale, capturing the outside world and its wonder. When you look at the album art of “Primrose Green” and “Golden Sings That Have Been Sung,” you can see how the two come from two different worlds. The two used to jam together and Bach’s connection to the greater swath of influential Chicago musicians that Walker admired certainly makes the album something of a reintegration of the guitarist back to the home from whence he came. ![]() He hooked up with one of his inspirations, Wilco multi-instrumentalist LeRoy Bach, to produce the album. Whether he was coming down from the road, trying to reconnect to his roots, some combination of the two or something more practical, the music continued to flow from Walker. Soon after returning back to his home, Walker began recording. The newfound attention translated into more than 200 shows in that time period to bring the exciting new guitarist to as many audiences as possible. The previous 10 months had seen the guitarist and singer-songwriter rise to international acclaim on the back of his breakthrough album “Primrose Green,” an exquisite collection of songs that critics praised for its lush instrumentation and Walker’s mastery of the guitar. Ryley Walker recorded his newest album “Golden Sings That Have Been Sung” after finding himself back in Chicago after the biggest journey of his career. You are all but willing to drown in its comfort. But it is any emptiness that wants to be filled up so quickly and fully so that it is alive again, humming from your presence. When you turn the knob to your apartment, house, duplex, room, tent, what-have-you, you can feel the emptiness of it all. The air begins to feel a little fresher, the contours of the land begin to feel familiar again.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |