His voice scratches with an undercurrent of soul on “Summer Dress”, washing up against the shores of Bert Jansch. Whereas William Tyler, Steve Gunn, and Daniel Bachman create long, instrumental escapades, Ryley Walker does the same but with hearty vocals added to the mix. Joined by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, drummer Frank Rosaly, double bassist Anton Hatwich, and vibraphone player Jason Adasiewicz, Walker incorporates improvisational jazz without compromising the album’s folk core. Primrose Green coalesces bare pastoral swirls of upright bass and dreamlike piano with the kind of background chatter you would find at a coffee shop. Similarly, Walker has guitarist Brian Sulpizio and pianist Ben Boye. Their folk sessions saw jazz musicians wandering into the studio beside them, wringing out a final product littered with improvised licks. John Martyn had double bassist Danny Thompson Tim Buckley had guitarist Lee Underwood. Walker’s decision to bring jazz musicians on board came from careful observations of the folk giants before him. Much of the reason Primrose Green can stand on its hind legs is because of the ornate work of Walker’s backing band. It’s a history well noted and well tailored to his songs. From the Nick Drake simplicities of “Love Can Be Cruel” to the Van Morrison weight of “All Kinds of You”, he follows up his debut album (also titled All Kinds of You) by burying himself deeper in the ’60s folk of Tim Hardin and John Fahey, coupled with free jazz wanderings.

Who knows where he learned it, but Walker is hyper-aware of his vintage folk precursors. Several years later, he can last through dizzying codas on “Same Minds” or cheeky Irish licks on “Griffiths Bucks Blues”. That discipline eventually brought him to lacquer his fingertips at cheap salons in pursuit of a smoother sound. Walker is wedded to his instrument - so much so that he was once fired from a job at Jimmy John’s for practicing in their walk-in freezer. The fingerpicking on “On the Banks of the Old Kishwaukee” wanders with a tumultuous spirit. It moves comfortably at its own pace, all the while blissfully unaware of its own complexity.Īt just 25 years old, Walker is seemingly decades ahead of most of his contemporaries in both technical skill and composition. His fingerpicking style takes off on its own, ambling down a path, kicking pebbles and scuffing its heels, too busy looking up at the sky and wondering how large it really is to be concerned with where exactly it’s headed. It’s more than an extension of his body - it’s an extension of his imagination. The Chicago songwriter wields his guitar with masterful ease. Opening with its earthy title track, Primrose Green whisks listeners back several decades. On first listen, it’s easy to mistake Ryley Walker’s sophomore album as the forgotten effort of a heralded ’60s British folk-jazz quartet.

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