Nashville guitarist and composer William Tyler’s new 12” Lost Colony marks a significant departure from his two solo albums, both of which were collections of sparely orchestrated, virtuoso guitar instrumentals. His debut, 2010’s Behold the Spirit, was a workbook’s worth of tricky exercises in rapid-fire fingerpicking, cluttered harmonies, and expansive open tunings. With the help of song titles like “Terrace of the Leper King” and “The Cult of the Peacock Angel”, the comparisons to John Fahey rolled in. On his follow-up, Impossible Truth, Tyler rebelled modestly against that designation, peppering the album with bristlier psych-Americana pieces for electric guitar and drones. Now, across Lost Colony’s three tracks, the guitarist seeks to capture a completely different musical atmosphere: that of a standard-issue rock band playing live in a room.
The main attraction on the EP is the first track, the 13-minute “Whole New Dude". It's essentially two movements punctuated by a recurring string of overdriven electric guitar chords which conjure up the image of hurtling towards a Midwestern skyline on an open, mildly potholed highway. The interest of the track is mostly in the changing rhythmic emphases of Tyler’s finger-picking against Jamin Orrall’s unwavering, muscular drumbeat. Tyler switches between a few basic riffs, which he plays in a cyclical progression like a regimented Indian raga. Though it’s extraordinarily involved playing, the band runs the arrangement down like they do it a few times every day, and the ritualistic nature of their performance gives the song a compellingly static, meditative quality.
The EP’s second track, “We Can't Go Home Again”, is also on Impossible Truth. There, it's an acoustic guitar solo redolent of the English folk scene of the late 1960s/early 1970s, building in intensity as Tyler adds increasingly detailed ornamentations and internal melodies. Lost Colony’s full-band retake sounds more like a jangly Big Star instrumental augmented by steel guitar swells. It's easy to see why Tyler decided that this version was worth a separate release—the arrangement transforms the character of the song entirely, but it also doesn’t add anything to it. Instead, the full-throttle treatment obscures some of the finer points of the guitar playing and reduces the piece’s dynamic range. If the original was a beacon of clarity after Impossible Truth’s comparatively sludgy first half, it feels inconsequential on Lost Colony, an intermission between two pieces with more inventive musical aims.
The second of these is an odd, playful cover of “Karusell”, a model kraut-shuffle from Neu! founder Michael Rother’s 1977 album Flammende Herzen. The appeal of Rother’s original is its compressed, streamlined flatness—the modesty of the grainy synth, lightly chugging rhythm guitar, and dry, muted drumkit. But the ornate details count in Tyler's version. The ping-ponging delay and fuzz on the guitar build up until the band fades out still blaring, the "carousel" spinning out of control in a way that the original never does.
On the whole, Tyler’s move toward a full ensemble feels inspired. It is gratifying to see such a gifted artist broadening his palette to accommodate new influences. If Lost Colony is a testing ground for ideas for a new full-length ensemble effort, it's an auspicious beginning. But it remains to be seen whether an entire album of kraut-country—Tyler has hinted at the idea—or even a record without solo guitar will play to his well-tested strengths for subtlety and complexity.
