There is always some undiscovered land in Ryley Walker’s vast world. In one hemisphere resides a full-album reinterpretation of Dave Matthews Band’s The Lillywhite Sessions that the New York-based guitarist covered with unerring reverence and sincerity; in another, he is a living historian cum poet of bathrooms. Just this February, he released Deep Fried Grandeur*—*an improvised live set that’s like a kosmische ramble cut with Japanese psychedelic explorers Kikagaku Moyo. Course in Fable exists somewhere new, yet again, as if the freedom afforded by releasing music on his own Husky Pants label has spurred him to always be creating on the frontier. Produced by Tortoise’s John McEntire (who also contributed synth and keyboards), Course in Fable is Walker’s most ambitious and satisfying solo album to date.
Another factor in Walker’s artistic resurgence has been resolving his substance abuse problems. As he admitted in an interview conducted in early April, he’d been sabotaging himself for years, saying that “redemption, joy, and gratitude” inform Course in Fable. After a failed suicide attempt in 2019, Walker sought help through meds, therapy, sobriety, and he saved himself. He got happy, but, mercifully, not sappy.
On opening track “Striking Down Your Big Premiere,” though, you may gasp at the outrageously bold intro that leads into a motif of Keith Emersonian grandiosity, bolstered by rococo, fiery guitar riffing from Bill MacKay. The song soon downshifts into a dulcet burble of folk-rock with an earnest, Sebadoh-esque melodic contour that later splays out into surging proggy climaxes. “We’re all lot lizards parked outside your door,” Walker sings, later concluding, “Always shit-brained when I’m pissed.” Longtime fans may wonder, how did we get to this pomp? But “Rang Dizzy” floats things back to Earth with cello-augmented baroque ’n’ roll. The refrain, “I am wise/I am so fried/Rang dizzy inside/Fuck me, I’m alive,” points to Walker’s amazement at reversing his downward spiral. These are undoubtedly the album’s most straightforward lyrics.
Elsewhere, it’s clear that Walker has developed into a writer who turns the mundane into the profound. He obliquely poeticizes around his subjects, speaking in riddles as esoteric as they are memorable. None of the lyrics on Fable lands as bluntly as “I’d rather be dead than to see you cry” from Primrose Green’s “Sweet Satisfaction.” Rather, idiosyncratic details abound and veiled meanings reign. “A Lenticular Slap” exemplifies Walker’s sloshed-on-words approach. Sounding like an homage to the big-vocabulary rock of Slovenly, SST Records’ unsung ’80s heroes, the track writhes with rhythmic switchbacks, unexpected acoustic flourishes, and eccentric vocal phrasing. It appears to chronicle a drug-induced breakdown, but lines such as “A lenticular slap/To the cross-eyed seeker/The bridge written off the map/News crawl from a goddamn tweaker” don’t telegraph it. The mantra “Hold on to the loose ends” chanted as a freaky wah-wah guitar exults to the fadeout ranks as a harrowing highlight. “I’m not a good storyteller,” Walker said in an interview this year. “I write couplets in a journal and stitch them together. It’s all sort of non sequitur, stream-of-consciousness crazy talk. I don’t have any big revelations or answers.”
Another promising new direction emerges on the weird epic “Pond Scum Ocean.” MacKay’s electric guitar skitters in strange directions and in odd modes, then shifts into trance-inducing chimes hinting at both The Twilight Zone theme and John Berberian’s Middle Eastern Rock. Who else writes like this? Perversely, Fable’s last song is its catchiest—“Shiva with Dustpan,” a gorgeous orchestral folk tune and a testament to strings arranger and cellist Douglas Jenkins’s delicate touch. Shiva is an ascetic Hindu god known as “The Destroyer,” but also as a prodigious creator with world-transforming powers. Walker equips the deity with that most humble of implements, another contrast of the mundane and profound.
Up through 2016’s Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, Walker was on course to become a 21st-century Tim Buckley, or John Martyn, or Bert Jansch. But he soured on being beholden to freak-folk masters and going through the indie-rock golden-boy grinder, so he diversified and started jamming with musicians such as drummer Ryan Jewell, who helped to nudge him down stranger paths. Course in Fable bears the ripe fruit of this impulse, cohering into the most impressive of many surprising recent triumphs from an artist who’s faced down oblivion and has emerged more inspired than ever.
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