“The Grand Old Trout” by Bill MacKay and Ryley Walker

A bit of a diversion now off the path of what’s been mostly jangling lo-fi DIY Australasian guitar pop over the past few weeks, into my favourite acoustic guitar album of 2023. OK, so “SpiderBeetleBee” by Bill MacKay and Ryley Walker was released in 2017 well before the world went crazy. Somehow it only came to my attention this year, and I’m glad it did. It’s extraordinarily good, as good as anything from the masters like Renbourn, Jansch etc.

There’s only one song shared on the Drag City Records Bandcamp page for the album “The Grand Old Trout” but it’s as good a calling card for the album as any.

Bill MacKay is a Chicago based guitarist-composer-improviser. Ryley Walker was also Chicago based at the time I think but now New York based. He is also a guitarist-composer-improviser with a broad catalogue of exploratory folk-pop-jazz-prog etc albums (MacKay appears on some – check the recent “Course in Fables”). The pair have also released an earlier live album together “Land of Plenty”.  

“SpiderBeetleBee” is described as “Shared joy and acoustics in rambling conversation, as two friends travel the continents via high-road, short-cut and their own paths, yet untravelled. Picking in the tradition, Walker and MacKay summon drafts of slide blues, baroque dance, percolating latin and deep-focus space to push them on their way beyond the sunrise.” I don’t need to write anything more. If you like “The Grand Old Trout” here you’ll love the whole album.

Just found another Bandcamp page for the album which shares another quite different track, “I Heard Them Singing” which is my favourite on the album, so bonus music time. Enjoy.

“Lammas Fair” by Henry Parker

We’ve lost a few of the great British folk guitar players and songwriters in the past 10 years – Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and now Michael Chapman. But there is a new generation of guitar players continuing the tradition, by updating it as those players did, while also maintaining a strong connection to the past. One such guitarist and songwriter is Henry Parker, who has an album “Lammas Fair” out soon. Here’s the title track:

While the song (lyrics and voice) is in the style of traditional 1960s British folk, there’s a more adventurous 1970s exploratory character to the song. Parker’s use of the DADGAD open tuning, combination of acoustic and electric guitar and the non-traditional melodic diversions along the way in “Lammas Fair” bring some more exotic psychedelic rock guitar elements in to the music.

“The album explores an intersection between past and present, using the groundwork of folk music set out decades and centuries ago and moving it into new terrain, as it explores ideas, themes and lyrics that explore both historic and contemporary settings. The title Lammas Fair refers to a historical annual celebration held across Europe on the 1st August, which heralded the first harvest of wheat.”

“All This Remains” by Bert Jansch & Hope Sandoval

Wet cold Sundays require warm nourishing music, so here’s a collaboration between legendary Scottish folk guitarist Bert Jansch (Pentangle) and American musician Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions), “All This Remains”:

“All This Remains” is from Jansch’s 2002 album “On The Edge of a Dream”, released the year after Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions “Bavarian Fruit Bread” which he contributed to. “Bavarian Fruit Bread” was released on Rough Trade Records in 2001. It’s an essential album, but long out of print, with the LP version selling for hundreds of dollars now, and even the CD edition of the album and two related CD EPs “At The Doorway Again” (2000) and “Suzanne” (2002) are hard to find.

As Jansch explains in the sleeve notes: “I played on a couple of tracks on Hope’s album “Bavarian Fruit Bread”, and loved the imagery she evokes – particularly American, but shrouded in mystery. It was suggested we do some writing together, a collaboration, and here it is: “All This Remains.”

As well as Jansch’s acoustic guitar and Sandoval’s vocal, “All This Remains” features subtle percussion from her Warm Inventions collaborator Colm O’Ciosoig (My Bloody Valentine) and Jansch’s son on Adam on bass.