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Review: 'WALKER, RYLEY'
'Course In Fable'   

-  Label: 'Husky Pants Records'
-  Genre: 'Indie' -  Release Date: '2nd April 2021'

Our Rating:
Ryley Walker is an exciting talent and a hard man to pin down.

Since his debut album for the Tompkins Square label in 2014, he has dabbled with elements of Psych-folk, Chicago Jazz and raga-inspired blues never sticking with one genre long enough to be pigeon-holed. His free ranging approach means that you never quite know what to expect next.

‘Course In Fable’ contains seven tracks with a playing time of 40 minutes. It opens with Striking Down Your Big Premiere, a prog-like ballad wherein electric guitarist Bill MacKay channels his inner Steve Howe to back Walker’s oblique non sequiturs like :” I love the smell of jet bridge fumes before I board with the few Group D vagabonds and their pimps.” Jazzy guitar lines are also a feature of Rang Dizzy and this also includes elegant string arrangements.by Douglas Jenkins.

Walker is no storyteller, favoring what he calls “stream-of-consciousness crazy talk” culled from couplets jotted down in his notebook. The impressionistic result feels both free and fried as you can gather from bizarre titles such as Clad With Bunk and Shiva With Dustpan.

The album title come from the opening line to Axis Bent , a song identified as having ‘explicit’ content because of an innocuous “fuck truth” aside.

A Lenticular Slap and Pond Scum Ocean , the two longest tracks, slip and slide in many directions with lengthy instrumental sections that sound like the result of improvised sessions. The experimental thrust of the record is on a par with fellow sonic shapeshifter Jim O'Rourke.

None of this makes for an instant classic. This is an album that needs time to absorb fully but you immediately get the notion that each hearing will reveal new layers and that time and patience will bring rich rewards.

Ryler Walker's website
  author: Martin Raybould

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WALKER, RYLEY - Course In Fable