![]() This is a true colossus of an album and if it doesn’t make your top ten of 2015 come New Year’s Eve, I have to question your sanity. It’s a vital, vivid, veracious victory that will crush you like a boa constrictor until it releases you from its cheeky grasp and tickles your tummy instead. You will hear few full length releases this year with as much substance as ‘Primrose Green’. It’s a much needed diversion from an album steeped in raw emotion and as such it stands out as a clear highlight. ![]() Indeed, so intense is the first half of the record that it comes as a relief when the cool and carefree whimsy of ‘On The Banks Of The Old Kishwaukee’ freshens the atmosphere with a more conventional West Coast country summer vibe. ![]() It ought to have anyone that hears it utterly enraptured from the very first moment. The songs here are far from a lazy pastiche of the idols of yesteryear though, for ‘Primrose Green’ is a big, brazen set that cocks its leg and marks its own lamp post with the most pungent of aromas. There’s even a Pentangle-style instrumental in the form of ‘Griffiths Bucks Blues’, one of several tracks which, being a failed guitarist myself, made my fingers hurt just listening to it. Elsewhere, there are flourishes of the Buckley dynasty (more Tim than Jeff though, it should be noted), nods to ‘Astral Weeks’ period Van Morrison and the early solo work of Richard Thompson. Apart from the obvious influence of Martyn, Walker channels a less fey Nick Drake on ‘The High Road’, a composition in which he becomes, perhaps surprisingly, a dead ringer for James Yorkston in his delivery. The Chicagoan guitarist’s main reference points are self evident. It’s no great leap of faith, either, to picture Walker, hair cascading in the summer breeze, as a kind of messianic figure up on the main stage at Woodstock as the song builds, lost in the marijuana fog clouds and immersed in the splendour of the remarkable musical sparring team he has built around him. The similarity is uncanny at times, notably on the breathtaking ‘Same Minds’ and the ‘Solid Air’ melancholy of ‘Sweet Satisfaction’, the former of which begins with the kind of sparse, off-kilter bass championed by Tom Waits around his ‘Small Change’ era, and the latter of whom changes tack at the end into a frenetic workout that is as thrilling as it is unexpected. 'Deafman Glance' is out on May 18th.Ryley Walker’s musical persona inhabits the same woozy, smoky 3 am jazz club once patronised by the likes of John Martyn. Golden Sings That Have Been Sung (Deep Cuts Edition) Ryley Walker All Kinds Of You Ryley Walker The Lillywhite. That’s the sound I hear, all the time, ringing in my ears." 4 Griffith Bucks Blues 0:00 02:45 0.20 Buy. Chicago sounds like a train constantly coming towards you but never arriving. And I think I succeeded in that way - it’s got some weird instrumentation on there, and some surreal far-out words. I was always trying to make something like this I guess, trying to catch up with my imagination. I just wanted to make something weird and far-out that came from the heart finally. "I didn’t want to be jammy acoustic guy anymore. "I wanted to make something deep-fried and more me-sounding." "I was under a lot of stress because I was trying to make an anti-folk record and I was having trouble doing it," Ryley continues. ![]() There’s a looseness to some of the songs I guess, but I didn’t want to rely on just hanging out on one note." He comments: "I think more than anything the thing to take away from this record is that I appreciate what improv and jamming and that outlook on music has done for me, but I wanted rigid structure for these songs.
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