![]() “I’ve got a great relationship with my mind and body and spirit. More than that, it feels like a creative breakthrough for Walker, who’s already recognized as one of the leading lights of the contemporary indie jam scene. Nevertheless, Course In Fable has garnered some of the best reviews of his career. That means he also doesn’t have a publicist or any other infrastructure for promotion and distribution. Having recently parted ways with his label, Secretly Canadian, Walker opted to put out Course In Fable on his own. The result is one of 2021’s most unabashedly gorgeous and grand indie records. In the studio, he was assisted by John McEntire, a Chicago indie legend known for his work with Tortoise and The Sea And Cake. A die-hard fan of the English pop-prog band Genesis and a devout student of Chicago post-rock, Walker has somehow merged these influences on Fable, stitching together multi-part songs heavy on wonky guitar solos and unexpected time signature changes. On Friday, he will release Course In Fable, his finest studio album to date. Thankfully, times are much better these days for the 31-year-old Illinois native. The decision came after Walker came close to taking his own life while on tour in New Mexico. In the spring of 2019, the inventive guitarist and songwriter - who’s also known for his hilarious social media presence - checked himself into rehab for drug and alcohol dependency. The last time I spoke with Ryley Walker, he wasn’t far removed from the darkest period of his life. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. Listen to A Tap on the Shoulder in the context of Ryley’s glorious Course in Fable listento it in the context of Grubbs’s playing with Loren Connors, Jim O’Rourke, Taku Unami, and others or listen to it as if you’ve never heard note one from these soulful odd birds, the two of them curiously, quixotically committed to working inside and beyond song form.The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. ![]() Juggernauts, A Tap on the Shoulder toggles effortlessly between microscope, telescope, and Cinemascope, letting the smallest of gestures land in all of its sonic specificity before opening the scene up to disorienting panoramas. And where the duo’s live performances thus far have been set-length What’s good for the geezer is good for the, etc. Ryley’s hellion musical fearlessness lights a fire under the more typically Apollonian, chess-masterly Grubbs. Don’t think for a second that these shorthand descriptions suffice.Įlectric guitars make electronic music. Studio sessions were clearly in the cards, and the result is A Tap on the Shoulder, a collection of duo performances that veers from crystalline instrumental compositions (“A Tap on the Shoulder,” “Accepting Most Plans,” “Dorothy Kept”) to animated alien chatterfests (“Leslie Steinberger”), and from ecstatic extrapolations charging this way and that (“Pump Fake on the Death Rattle,” “The Madman from Massachusetts in an Empty Bar”) to, I don’t know, words don’t do the trick (“Uglification”). (One of these live sets was released earlier this year as Fight or Flight Simulator on Café OTO’s Takuroku label.) Mutual admiration society and David Grubbs and Ryley Walker had been taking notes on one another’s playing for some time before they hit the stage together on a couple of blistering occasions immediately pre-pandemic. ![]() How about now? (Not for you to decide.) Or exactly what it means-except in the aftermath. You never know when that tap’s going to come.
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