![]() With a delicate rhythmic latticework and vocals that ask you to lean in, "Busted Stuff" recalls Jim O' Rourke's golden Drag City days. Punk Adolescence Lost: In Search of Apathetics Archives A handful of late-nineties Apathetics recordings sound as fabulously squalid as SoCal hardcore punk from twenty years earlier.On The Lillywhite Sessions, Ryley Walker and the similarly indebted trio of drummer Ryan Jewell and bassist Andrew Scott Young cover Dave Matthews' infamously abandoned 2001 art-rock masterpiece of the same name, a record where he and his band indulged a new adult pathos and a budding musical wanderlust.Queen City Cool in Chicago: A Preview of Harambe’s Heroes at The Empty Bottle Originally a one-off supergroup to crank out a set’s worth of tunes covering obscure nuggets by punk and new wave outfits who made their home in Cincinnati.From Agony to Ecstasy: A Review of Hollyy’s “If You’re Ever Lost” Pop music doesn’t have a trademark on ecstasy and as the retro-soul band Hollyy demonstrates, we shouldn’t shortchange its value at times like these.Speak Everything, Sing Nothing: A Preview of Dry Cleaning at The Empty Bottle Words spoken over jagged-edged guitars is not the norm and that is the field within which Dry Cleaning operates with dynamic impact.“If you don’t have any information, you can go many different directions.” Eternally in the Moment: A Preview of Damo Suzuki at The Empty Bottle “For me it is important not to have any information before we start,” Suzuki says.Prolific Punks: A Preview of Vacation at The Empty Bottle The sound of Vacation is one of fuzz-soaked guitars and earworm-inducing hooks.Also on the bill: Ohmme and Ben Lamar Gay. Obviously, when Walker takes the Empty Bottle stage this month, he’ll have to forego that quill in his sonic arsenal, but what he has left should be more than sufficient for an absolutely standout show.ĭecember 28, 9pm at The Empty Bottle, 1035 North Western, (773)276-3600 $18. These tunes shimmer with studio wizardry, from spatial dynamics to instrumental weaves. On both “Deafman Glance” and “The Lillywhite Sessions,” Walker is not only backed by topflight players, but by highly burnished post-production. In “Can’t Ask Why,” he sings, “Tripped over your coat / Quick exit now ruined / Wish me better luck / Could use bus fare too.” In “22 Days,” he croons: “I’m careful with the truths I tell / Wine-stained teeth don’t really suit me well / But I gave myself twenty-two days / Twenty-two days to come up with a master plan.” Though in that respect, “Deafman Glance” represents a quantum leap true, like Walker’s vocals in his previous releases, he here maintains a kind of shoegaze mumble, but he’s added so much expressiveness and tonal color that every tossed-off or partially swallowed syllable galvanizes.Īnd as always, his lyrics throughout are just goddamn flattening he beguilingly tacks between poetic imagery and vernacular interjections. Walker’s careening range might be disorienting but for the consistency of his virtuosic guitar, which evokes a much vaster palette of colors, textures and moods than even his singing. They’ll find themselves awash in a dazzling range of styles and grooves-from the jangly, slightly hallucinogenic opener, “In Castle Dome,” to the eerie, minor-key “Accommodations,” which plays out like a Brechtian fever dream. ![]() My real hope is that Walker’s “Lillywhite”-and Matthews’ verdict that it is in fact “all Ryley Walker and it’s badass”-will inspire Matthews fans to reach beyond that to “Deafman Glance,” the extraordinary album of original material Walker released in May. ![]() Most of the tracks from Matthews’ unreleased album have long been accessible online, and it’s revelatory to hear, for instance, Walker’s more nuanced take on “Grace Is Gone,” the rhythmic sophistication and jazz-infused sax line he brings to “Big Eyed Fish,” and his hauntingly beautiful vocals on “Grey Street.” When he sings, “She thinks, ‘Hey! / Why do I live to this? / I’m latest on life / How did it end like this?” the hairs on your nape may quiver in ravishment. And the thing is, the album really is sensational. If that prompts even a fraction of Matthews’ fan base to check out the album, Walker could wind up with the biggest hit of a still-young career. It’s all its own… If you didn’t know what inspired it, it wouldn’t matter.” And he managed to score Matthews’ endorsement in the bargain: on his Facebook page, Matthews posted that Walker’s “Lillywhite” is “more than a cover record. Chicago singer-songwriter Ryley Walker pulled off an ingenious marketing coup last month when he released “The Lillywhite Sessions,” on which he covers, from beginning to end, the famous “lost” album of the same name by the Dave Matthews Band.
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