3/30/2023 0 Comments Primrose green ryley walker![]() Without the presence of a rhythm section, it provides some essential stylistic and textural contrast. Griffiths Buck Blues provides an opportunity to showcase a more familiar, purposefully traditional aspect of Walker’s music, although the superb, radical cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm also offers an imposing presence. In fact, that sense of blend is a feature common throughout Primrose Green as a whole (listen to the questing, expansive introduction to Love Can Be Cruel, where all the musicians are making strong individual contributions, but never at the expense of the overall sound and groove). Ben Boye, who also plays in The Cairo Gang, offers a slightly distorted electric piano solo on Same Minds that would be abrasive were it not for the sensual, dreamy way it is subsumed into the surrounding waterfall of sound. The musicians play fully and without restraint, but in such a way that offers support and commentary to Walker’s dreamy reverie. Walker’s voice is at its loosest and most Buckley-esque here, his lyrics somewhat obscured by the sense of being lost in the moment. Summer Dress picks up where the rolling, undulating rhythms of Twin Oaks Pt 1 on All Kinds Of You left off, emphasising its triplet feel with liberal syncopation (one of many brilliant, sparring performances from drummer Frank Rosaly). ![]() Perhaps the only weakness here comes with the slightly limited and predictable lyrics (“head for the Primrose Green, gets me hiii-iiiii-iiiigh”), given that the music already offers such a sense of relaxed escapism. This allows for the performance to start softly and pick up intensity, with carefully rendered dynamic contrasts throughout. Brian Sulpizio’s lead guitar playing is subtle and thoughtful and all the musicians here seem to be acutely aware of the need to create space in this kind of ensemble. Piano provides useful shading, sometimes doubling key lines and at others adding counter-melodies or fuller textures. It shares the immersive, hypnotic appeal of some of the best tracks on All Kinds Of You (Walker’s debut album from 2013), but his vocal delivery seems more nuanced, and the arrangement is both thicker and more effective. The opening title track is both wistful and colourful, gently nostalgic and at the same time free roaming. Yet the songs here are also richly melodic, evocative and pastoral – the combination of inspired writing and productive improvising results in something freewheeling, psychedelic and fluid – music that is proud to wear its influences on its sleeve, but which also seems in its own way daring and personal. Walker understands the John Martyn of Inside Out as much as he understands the John Martyn of Bless The Weather. To achieve the latter, Walker has employed a high level, fluent and creative band of seasoned Chicago jazz players. ![]() ![]() Whilst his debut showed promise, not least in his tumbling, cascasing acoustic guitar playing, Primrose Green performs an impressive double stunt in better showcasing both his songwriting and singing on one hand, and his ambition to create something looser, freer and more spontaneous on the other. ![]() Bert Jansch (and Pentangle), Tim Buckley, Nick Drake, John Martyn, Tim Hardin… these are just some of the ghosts that haunt the fringes of Primrose Green, the excellent second album from Chicago guitarist and songwriter Ryley Walker. ![]()
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