William Tyler is not a traditional storyteller. Having played guitar alongside some of Nashville’s most distinctive songwriters (Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner and Silver Jews’ David Berman), he has clearly learned a good deal from them about establishing his voice, structuring narratives, and building tension. But Tyler—whose solo albums are purely instrumental—works in a field all his own, composing increasingly intricate and immersive narratives with just his playing. Tyler referred to his 2013 Merge Records debut Impossible Truth as being a “’70s singer-songwriter record without vocals,” and he develops that vision even more fully on its follow-up, Modern Country. Backed by an all-star band that notably includes Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and Megafaun’s Phil Cook, Tyler is able to summon a wide range of moods, from plaintive pastoral folk to a particular kind of k**osmische American music that fuses Brad Cook’s spacey synths and Luke Schneider’s gorgeous pedal steel like a slow, steady breeze on a hot summer day.
Even with all the talent in the room, Tyler’s guitar remains front and center. In “Kingdom of Jones,” his close-mic’d fingerpicking is breathtaking. The clear, constant sound of his strings rattling and his hand sliding across the neck highlight just how intimately produced and carefully performed these songs are. While quieter moments like these feel like a natural progression from Tyler’s early solo guitar work, other songs demonstrate how complex his signature style has become. Of course, there are enough sprightly, rubbery guitar licks to remind you that this is a guy whose official website also functions as a carefully curated Grateful Dead video blog. Still, Tyler puts an emphasis on both words in the album title. The compressed, layered solos in the first half of “The Great Unwind” recall prime-era Mark McGuire, while its triumphant, chugging second half actually brings to mind prime-era Mark Knopfler. First single “Gone Clear,” meanwhile, is Tyler’s most dazzling composition yet: a six-minute stunner that plays like Jim O’Rourke’s *The Visitor *reimagined to soundtrack a ballet.
Tyler’s thematic inspirations are equally far-reaching. “Kingdom of Jones” is dedicated to the Mississippi county whose anti-slavery stance during the Civil War put them at odds with the rest of the Confederacy. The lilting, starry-eyed “Albion Moonlight” is named for the title character of Kenneth Patchen’s American classic The Journals of Albion Moonlight (a character who coincidently posits that “Man has been corrupted by his symbols” and that “Language has killed his animal”—arguments put into practice by the band's quiet, evocative performances). Like his holographic figure on the album cover, Tyler lets himself become a part of his surroundings throughout Modern Country, encouraging his listeners to explore for themselves.
“The cultural geography of this vanishing America is what I sense as a slow fade,” spoke Tyler’s disembodied voice in a trailer announcing the album’s release: the kind of grandiose mission statement that might seem over-the-top were it not coming from an artist whose music is so radiantly full of ideas. He continued, “*Modern Country *is a love letter to what we are losing in America– to what we’ve already lost.” The beauty of the album lies in the fact that Tyler is able to pay homage to these foundations not with bitterness or cynicism but with awe, appreciation, and even hope.
