His affinity for the Chicago indie scene circa 1995-2003 ("I love that stuff so much," he gushes) nudges the songs into the thrilling intersection of deep-fried rock and jazz without a hint of imitative sentimentality. "Sonic Youth meets John Denver has always been the goal," says Walker, and, ironically or not, he's getting warmer. The "Ryley Walker sound," which he suggests (true to form) is "the best music for playing for your uncle," doesn't find its purest expression until the lilting sway of "In Castle Dome," the first track on last year's towering album Deafman Glance.
Even the cover art, by day-glo cartoonist Brian Blomerth, seems to melt into new dimensions. It's a groovy and fluorescent leap à la John Martyn's Vietnam-era reinvention from pastoral poet (see Bless the Weather) to free-love psychonaut ( Inside Out). "I had to pull myself out."īut things get interesting with 2016's Golden Sings That Have Been Sung (a "good" record, he finally grants), which finds Walker stretching out his (undeniable) chops into psychedelia and jazzy improvisation. "My first couple records used nostalgia as the marketing point, and it worked," he says. The Rockford, Illinois, native's debut All Kinds of You (Walker calls it, unabashedly, "bad") and sophomore effort Primrose Green (again, "bad") are heavily indebted to the "minimalism meets brutal beauty" aesthetic of his guitar soli idols with a sonic (and visual) palette that trades in some decidedly retro motifs. But a careful listen through his catalog reveals an evolution of uncommon depth and originality. Walker's meteoric rise (or fall) from rootsy troubadour to strung-out, fuzzed-out eccentric appears, to the uninitiated, like the stuff of rock cliches writ large. "I'd cry but life is too good and the high dose of antidepressants won't allow it," he tweeted. Though sobriety has pruned the party antics and harum-scarum guise that once defined him ("I want to be 19 gin and tonics Ryley anymore," he's said), Walker's poignant and imitable sense of humor, best showcased on his Twitter feed, remains intact. "I'm a child, filled with wonder and scared shitless, I have the tools to cope and move forward in life now." This past week, shortly after his 30th birthday, he celebrated five months of sobriety. Still, recognizing the gravity of his deteriorating condition ("I looked like a f-ing catcher's mitt," he told Crash and Ride), Walker canceled a string of lucrative dates in Europe and ensconced himself - sans guitar - in a Nashville rehab clinic. "I was not prepared to face the darkness at that point," he admits. "Death hurts," Walker tells the Inlander, from this side of paradise.
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