None of the lyrics on Fable lands as bluntly as “I’d rather be dead than to see you cry” from Primrose Green’s “Sweet Satisfaction.” Rather, idiosyncratic details abound and veiled meanings reign. He obliquely poeticizes around his subjects, speaking in riddles as esoteric as they are memorable. These are undoubtedly the album’s most straightforward lyrics.Įlsewhere, it’s clear that Walker has developed into a writer who turns the mundane into the profound. The refrain, “I am wise/I am so fried/Rang dizzy inside/Fuck me, I’m alive,” points to Walker’s amazement at reversing his downward spiral. “We’re all lot lizards parked outside your door,” Walker sings, later concluding, “Always shit-brained when I’m pissed.” Longtime fans may wonder, how did we get to this pomp? But “Rang Dizzy” floats things back to Earth with cello-augmented baroque ’n’ roll. The song soon downshifts into a dulcet burble of folk-rock with an earnest, Sebadoh-esque melodic contour that later splays out into surging proggy climaxes. On opening track “Striking Down Your Big Premiere,” though, you may gasp at the outrageously bold intro that leads into a motif of Keith Emersonian grandiosity, bolstered by rococo, fiery guitar riffing from Bill MacKay. He got happy, but, mercifully, not sappy. After a failed suicide attempt in 2019, Walker sought help through meds, therapy, sobriety, and he saved himself.

As he admitted in an interview conducted in early April, he’d been sabotaging himself for years, saying that “redemption, joy, and gratitude” inform Course in Fable. It may seem a somewhat indulgent jam but under optimal conditions – and that could be an afternoon in the sun with a glass of wine, or pottering about the house – this one washes over and through the listener with numerous points of aural interest, shifts of shape and abstract sonic collisions (try 10 minutes into Shrinks the Day) to keep pulling you back in.Īn album which really hits lift-off, Kraut-rock shoegaze and astral flight in Shrinks The Day.Another factor in Walker’s artistic resurgence has been resolving his substance abuse problems. The second piece Shrinks The Day – basically a contiunuum form the first which illustrates the sonic arc they were on – gently pulls us back to Haight-Ashbury for some Indo-folk rock (KM have sitar player Ryu Kurosawa among their number) and something more swirling and Quicksilver-Grateful- Airplane.įor music improvised on the hoof after just one rehearsal by Walker and his four-piece band with the five-piece Kikagaku Moyo, this edit of the event is very much an album of “smoke 'em if you got 'em”. Kikagaku Moyo dial back from their more psych-rock approach into a lovely post- Grateful Dead exotica psych-folk style for the opening half of the first of these two 18 minute pieces, Pour Dampness Down in the Stream.įor the second half they all shift pace, tempo and attitude into something akin to a minimalist folk-prog motorik groove which devolves into brittle, popping rhythms with Indo-jazz guitar lines. Walker has an excellent new album Course in Fable (mentioned in emails by some after Elsewhere posted its mid-year report) but here we default to this tripped-out psych-folk album recorded live at a festival in Utrecht in 2018 but which has only recently been released. Although the name of the Japanese psych-rock band upfront here may not be familiar (we were underwhelmed by their Masana Temples album), many will know of American singer-guitarist Ryley Walker whose reference points are in the experimental Anglo-folk of Bert Jansch, Tim Buckley and John Martyn (and of course Nick Drake) as well as Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison ( alluded to on his Primrose Green album cover, one of our Best of Elsewhere 2015 picks).

Ryley walker deep fried grandeur