At a time when lots of musicians are reviving the glories of the analog synthesizer (including both Calexico and the Decemberists this year), Ryley Walker is going even farther back into the depths of rock history. This Rockville, Illinois, native now based in Chicago is churning out psychedelic folk-rock that calls to mind the restless spirits of pre-synth 1960s innovators on both sides of the Atlantic: The Pentangle, John Martyn, Tim Buckley, Jefferson Airplane, Van Morrison. (The cover art too, with its double exposure, the hirsute musician with a fistful of flowers, even the typeface, all scream 1967.) Call it soulful folk-blues or psychedelic folk-rock, or jazz-inflected acid-folk, it has the same feel, a similar sound, and it’s driven by Walker’s masterful acoustic picking and his soulful, improvisatory vocals.
The picking is most evident and impressive on the instrumental “Griffith Buck’s Blues,” his rapidly fingerpicked guitar laid over droning fiddle. The album also starts off with some impressive picking on the title track “Primrose Green,” which sketches the feeling of the awful morning after, mixed with hazy memories of things gone wrong the night before.
On Primrose Green Walker is backed by a handful of sympathetic players who blend ideas from folk, rock and jazz in a way that’s frequently reminiscent of early Morrison – an ensemble of piano, bass and drums and an electric guitar, all of which wander seemingly aimlessly but always find the turnarounds right on time. “Summer Dress” is pure jazz trio at the beginning, bass and drums joined by Fender Rhodes, then a couple of electric guitars sketching out bluesy chords, and Walker begins wailing mystical love poetry.
Drummer Frank Rosaly drives the frantic rhythm of “Love Can Be Cruel” into a psychedelic groove that any Summer of Love band would recognize. Walker’s impressionistic lyrics paint a hazy picture of a wandering minstrel’s life:
“Taking the ride from strangers so kind / feeling the breeze of evil arrive / Put on your boots and grab up the corn / two birds calling, early the morn …”
The disc’s one anomaly is the gently loping Americana ballad that begins the second half of the album. “On The Banks Of The Old Kishwaukee” is a clear-eyed song that reflects Walker’s impressions of baptisms taking place on the titular river. The reproduction of both the instruments and vocals are clearer on this number than the others, more modern-sounding somehow. The rest of the album sounds more like the early folk-rock that inspired it, amplified by tubes and recorded on tape, Walker’s vocals frequently yelped from somewhere behind the instruments.
I like the second half’s songs even better than the first. “Sweet Satisfaction” is a seriously strident acid blues, Walker getting deeply into the old “I’d rather be dead” trope on the record’s longest jam. Walker does some fine, intricate picking that’s almost overshadowed by heavily distorted electric guitar crunch and apocalyptic drumming.
“The High Road,” which follows, is a heavenly pastoral diversion after all that, a Jansch-ian acoustic folk amble abetted by what sounds like a couple of cellos. “All Kinds Of You” is apparently a reworking of a theme he’s explored before in slightly different guise; it’s a mid-tempo love song of sadness and loss, the lyrics deepened by gently plucked electric guitar lines and distorted electric piano fills. And the album ends on a more upbeat note of pure folk – in singing style, acoustic plucking style and imagery of roses, wine and love. None of that “going ’round the roses” but getting right down in them, thorns and all.
Ryley Walker has a wonderfully refreshing and modern take on an old and venerable style of song. I love what he’s doing with this music, and I hope Primrose Green finds the audience it deserves.
(Dead Oceans, 2015)
