The board was barely reset from the All Kinds of You sessions before Ryley was corralling his by-then-rejiggered band back into Minbal studios in Chicago to solidify a totally new direction in his creative vision. His 2013 recordings, that resulted in The West Wind EP and All Kinds of You LP, fully express these Anglophilic tendencies. He was finding a new path refracting the British traditional spectrum, from Bert Jansch to Nick Drake, and defying all the limitations of the genre. Both efforts were impressive displays of fingerpicking prowess.Īfter a 2012 bike accident, Ryley began practicing more diligently he began lacquering his fingertips at cheap salons, permanently giving his playing aggression and tone difficult to achieve with naked fingertips or finger picks. Evidence of Things Unseen and Of Deathly Premonitions (with Daniel Bachman) appeared briefly as limited cassette releases.

By 2011, at age 21, he finally began issuing recordings from his already impressive catalog of compositions. Ryley transitioned slowly into the finger-style playing in 2008. His personal life might be tumultuous and his residential status in question, but his bedrock is disciplined daily rehearsal and an inexhaustible wellspring of song craft. Although recorded in a bar in front of a capacity crowd, it’s not until the album’s final seconds that the fourth wall is dropped and the listener can hear the crowd’s raucous applause.Ryley Walker is the reincarnation of the true American guitar player. Like their live set up, Bill’s guitar can be heard on the left of the stereo picture and Ryley’s on the right. Guitar tone was a key element when selecting the tracks that made the cut. Songs run the gamut from fingerstyle ballads to psychedelic waltzes and raga-inspired blues. Land of Plenty is completely instrumental and falls somewhere between Ryley Walker’s acclaimed new album, Primrose Green (Dead Oceans), and Bill MacKay’s highly melodic work in Darts & Arrows.

Alex Inglizian of Experimental Sound Studios recorded the final two shows of the residency and Erik Hall (In Tall Buildings, Wild Belle) mixed the seven tracks that comprise Land of Plenty. Each week, songs took on new shapes, while others were written and added to the always-evolving set list. The overall spirit of the residency was that of a creative workshop producing music that ran in directions as wide as the duo’s interests. In January 2015, Bill and Ryley took up a month-long, Friday night residency at The Whistler, a live music venue/gallery/record label in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Over the course of the year, an impressive repertoire of new songs and ideas coalesced. The duo quickly developed their own musical vocabulary and the resulting sounds drew on traditional folk music from Appalachia to Northern India, as well as jazz and blues. They soon began meeting at Bill’s southwest Chicago home to write and improvise together on their lived-in dreadnought 6-string guitars, with Ryley's 12-string and Bill's requinto making frequent appearances as the year wore on. Chicago-based guitarists Bill MacKay and Ryley Walker met in January 2014 at a friend’s birthday party where they discovered a mutual admiration for Albert King, Laura Nyro, Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, Ali Akbar Khan and Jimi Hendrix.

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