“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.

“CDROM” by Magik Markers

As we closed in on the end of this year of years Massachusetts institution Magik Markers presented us with the wild ride of a new album called simply “2020”; a free-ranging journey beyond the mainstream of rock and into some chaotic landscapes. Here’s the ramshackle psychedelic glory of “CDROM”:

The possessed-sounding “CDROM” takes guitarist Elisa Ambrogio’s stream-of-conciousness storytelling, with Pete Nolan’s tumbling drums keeping things on edge and John Shaw’s bass holding everything together. Things get weird. That’s a Magik Markers trademark, as well as 2020 (the year) feature.

The songs on “2020” have the unpredictable dangerous energy of early Sonic Youth and also the wild unhinged fire of The Velvet Underground at their incendiary noisy best. But that doesn’t mean this is some retro-fuelled re-grouping of familiar touchstones.

Throughout “2020” Magik Markers take their own hard-to-define path through the wreckage, subverting any stylistic norms. Delicate in places, blasts of sonic energy in other places, from Ambrogio’s extraordinary untethered guitar playing which takes uncharted improvisational flights, in a psychedelic post-punk / experimental noise-rock kind of way.

So buckle up and take a trip through “2020” with Magik Markers.

“Rock Pool” by Cate Le Bon

I first heard this fabulously psychedelic Cate Le Bon song a few months ago but it’s taken until now to discover it is on Bandcamp, the title track of a 4 song EP released at the end of January this year.

There’s much about the music on this EP that reminds me of the weirdness of fellow Welsh psychedelic adventurers Gorkys Zygotic Mynci and also a kind of sparse and folkish take on the playful astral psych of Super Furry Animals.

But in “Rock Pool” in particular Cate Le Bon somehow manages to (accidentally?) evoke the kind of whimsical surrealist psychedelia of the likes of early 70s Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers. Turns out the tracks are all out-takes from her recent album “Crab Days”. Or as Cate explains them: “”Rock Pool” is the killed darlings from the Crab Day sessions brought back to life on a classic 2-2 formation. Written under the same banner of the impossibly absurd and emerging to unimaginable bedlam.” 

Now a bit of exploration of the entire Cate Le Bon back catalogue is required…

 

“Superstitious” by Elisa Ambrogio

Accidentally stumbled (oK Tumblrd) across this song “Superstitious” from Elisa Ambrogia.

The following helpful information about Elisa Ambrogio is provided by her label, Drag City Records ” A new solo voice in the wilderness, speak-singing for the down-by-the-reservoir set. Gurl-group pleas and the rhyming of noise with boys are just part of the blur-eyed fun.”

Which is nothing and everything. Elisa is perhaps better known from the band Magic Markers. “Superstitious” is enough to have me impulse-buying the album. There’s a grainy lo-fi DIY spirit here and the music is like a dream-pop version of Jesus & Mary Chain’s debut ‘Psychocandy’ with some early Tall Dwarfs style looped-up percussion and layered minimal instrumentation and voice – simple, repetitive, familiar, melodic, elegiac… and filled with wonder.

“Superstitious” is from an album released on Drag City Records last month called “The Immoralist”. The video for “Superstitious” is by Naomi Yang (of Damon & Naomi/ Galaxie 500 etc.)

When trying to find out a bit more I found this video for a song pairing Elisa’s voice with the guitar playing of Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) under the name 200 Years. Also minimal and perfect. Another rabbit hole of wonderful music to get lost down… There’s an interview with Elisa on Tiny Mix tapes here..