Ryley Walker

Ryley Walker

Ryley Walker is a US singer-songwriter and guitarist from Rockford, Illinois, who is associated with indie folk, indie rock and singer-songwriter work. He is also known for acoustic playing, fingerstyle guitar and a style that moves between folk, rock, jazz, pop and experimental music.

Background and early work

Walker spends part of his early career in the Chicago indie and experimental scenes before developing a solo live set centred on acoustic guitar. His playing draws comparisons with William Tyler and Glenn Jones, as well as British folk guitarists such as John Renbourn, Davy Graham and Martin Carthy. His recorded work begins with cassette releases on Plustapes, including the limited-edition EP The Evidence of Things Unseen and the four-song collaboration Of Deathly Premonitions with Daniel Bachman, both in 2011.

Albums and recordings

His first widely distributed release is the vinyl-only three-track West Wind on Tompkins Square Records in 2013. His debut album, All Kinds of You, appears on the same label in 2014. After extensive touring and work on other artists’ records, he signs to Dead Oceans and records Primrose Green in Chicago with improvisers and jazz musicians including cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz. That album is his first to feature his own vocals and blends folk, rock, jazz and new music.

He follows it with Golden Sings That Have Been Sung in 2016, an eight-track album shaped in part by Chicago and by local groups such as Tortoise and Gastr del Sol. In the same year he releases Cannots, a limited vinyl collaboration with Chicago free jazz drummer Charles Rumback. Walker and Bill MacKay issue the guitar-duo album SpiderBeetleBee on Drag City in 2017, and in 2018 he releases Deafman Glance, recorded in Chicago with co-producer Leroy Bach and a larger group of regular collaborators.

Collaborations and later releases

Walker records The Lillywhite Sessions in 2018, reworking unreleased Dave Matthews Band material as both a tribute and a comic reinterpretation. He later returns to collaborative work with Rumback on Little Common Twist in 2019, and with J.R. Bohannon and Ben Greenberg on the trio album For Michael Ripps at the end of 2020. He also works with Tokyo-based psych band Kikagaku Moyo on Deep Fried Grandeur. His 2021 album Course in Fable marks a return to original solo material after Deafman Glance.

Style and associations

Walker’s music is described as shifting between noisy avant-garde work, virtuosic guitar pieces, spiritual pop, blues, folk, pop and experimental sounds. His recorded and live work often centres on guitar duets, acoustic fingerstyle playing and collaborations with jazz, free jazz and improvising musicians. He is also associated with the duo projects Crazy Bread and Bill MacKay & Ryley Walker.