Ryley Walker - Course In Fable

Ryley Walker’s fifth is a typically intricate affair, continuing his experimental approach to both guitar and arrangement as he stylistically slaloms through a number of diffuse influences - most of them, this time, based in the city that shaped him, Chicago. The result is a winding affair on which he indulges his every whim; there are complex time signatures aplenty, especially on the unpredictable ‘A Lenticular Slap’, whilst his serpentine guitar work ranges from the arpeggiated (especially on opener ‘Striking Down Your Big Premiere’) to the noodling (‘Axis Bent’). There’s also room for nods to jazz freakouts (‘Clad with Bunk’) and dub (the beat on ‘Pond Scum Ocean’). The peculiar thing about ‘Course in Fable’ is that it all comes off sounding so breezy; it is nothing like as demanding a listen as albums this indebted to prog tend to be, instead likely to lend itself perfectly to sunny, lazy days - woozy closer ‘Shiva with Dustpan’ a case in point. In and out of the studio, Ryley Walker has been one of indie rock’s more colourful characters for a while now; ‘Course in Fable’ only reinforces that view.