Brian Sulpizio’s lead guitar playing is subtle and thoughtful and all the musicians here seem to be acutely aware of the need to create space in this kind of ensemble. Piano provides useful shading, sometimes doubling key lines and at others adding counter-melodies or fuller textures. It shares the immersive, hypnotic appeal of some of the best tracks on All Kinds Of You (Walker’s debut album from 2013), but his vocal delivery seems more nuanced, and the arrangement is both thicker and more effective.
Ryley walker primrose green review free#
The opening title track is both wistful and colourful, gently nostalgic and at the same time free roaming. Yet the songs here are also richly melodic, evocative and pastoral – the combination of inspired writing and productive improvising results in something freewheeling, psychedelic and fluid – music that is proud to wear its influences on its sleeve, but which also seems in its own way daring and personal. Walker understands the John Martyn of Inside Out as much as he understands the John Martyn of Bless The Weather. To achieve the latter, Walker has employed a high level, fluent and creative band of seasoned Chicago jazz players.
Whilst his debut showed promise, not least in his tumbling, cascasing acoustic guitar playing, Primrose Green performs an impressive double stunt in better showcasing both his songwriting and singing on one hand, and his ambition to create something looser, freer and more spontaneous on the other. Bert Jansch (and Pentangle), Tim Buckley, Nick Drake, John Martyn, Tim Hardin… these are just some of the ghosts that haunt the fringes of Primrose Green, the excellent second album from Chicago guitarist and songwriter Ryley Walker.
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