This is the 10th anniversary re-issue of duelling guitarists Bill MacKay and Ryley Walkers first album together Land Of Plenty that was recorded live at the Whistler bar in Chicago, it was mixed by Erik Hall and mastered by Greg Obis.
The album opens with It Takes A Quilt the longest song on the album at nearly 12 minutes long, it opens with some slowly strummed and evolving guitars, that would be perfect to sit at home stitching a quilt together too. The slow breakdown is like they have reached a tough part of the stitching and have slowed down to make sure they don't need to unpick things.
Rickshaw Waltz has some Chinese opera cadences to this slow almost operatic waltz. Gold Season almost feels like the soundtrack for a very bleak gold rush film where the prospectors never find the gold, only the pain of being caught in a blizzard miles from anywhere, the sound of the snow storm is enveloping them, things get more desperate and they are buried deep in that snow hole, the playing gets far more intense, almost sitar like in places.
The title tune Land Of Plenty feels a touch calmer, with the interplay between what the two of them are doing seems to dovetail perfectly like cascading water down a mountainside. I am also near certain I have walked through the alley at the start of the video for this song.
Promise Me you won't spend twenty minutes tuning your guitar before playing this tune, no it sounds perfectly good to me, they feel a path through all the things that have been promised to them, like a good meal on the rider, some decent beers and a change of guitar strings if they need them, all the essentials.
Blues For Arthur has Spanish cadences while you sit and wonder which Arthur they are paying tribute to, is it the one the film is named after, or Arthur Lowe as I could hear his catch phrases over this you stupid boy etc, or maybe it's for Killer Kane dancing his way to another showdown, choose your own Arthur and just enjoy the wondrous blues tribute.
The album closes with Silver Cup which this being Chicago ought to be filled with Rum, strings get bent in delightful ways, on an almost gavotte style slow dance piece, that pulls ever so gently at the heartstrings.
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