William Tyler

Why not give this dude his own thread. Super talented Nashville guitarist, played with both Lambchop and Silver Jews, many others.
First album was magnificent - Behold the Spirit. Guess you could call it Takoma-style, but with some more ambient/experimental leanings.
New album forthcoming on Merge ... sometime soon?
Two live sets from this month: http://www.nyctaper.com/2012/09/william-tyler-september-6-and-7-2012-hopscotch-festival-2-performances-flac-mp3-streaming/

Looking forward to that, loved 'Behold the Spirit'.

Just discovered this guy. Really loving Impossible Truth. Fantastic stuff.

Yes! It is great.

haha, extremely successful thread i started here. most of the discussion has been over at Revolt of the ILX Brigade: New Post-Fahey Folk For PPL that post in the Takoma & Tompkin's Square Threads
he is awesome, looking forward to catching him live this summer.

just recently heard him too--i love Behold The Spirit; the newer one less so.

yeah, i'm leaning in that direction, too, though i do really like impossible truth. the live disc included on the recent imaginational anthem box is worth seeking out -- some really gorgeous stuff.

Lost Colony! YAY!

so good!

The Lost Colony 12" is the first material I've heard from this dude, but holy shit has it grabbed me. So captivating. All three tracks are so good. Love the nod to Television towards the end of "Whole New Dude". And how awesome is that pedal steel on "Karussell"?!?!
Kosmische American Music.

yeah he's great - would recommend his last one as well

also Chris Forsyth & the Solar Motel Band might be up your alley as well

Good one, was tipped to Forsyth in some 2013 eoy thread by Tylerw (who else ;). Great album. Tyler's stuff is more epic/grand, to my ears. Love the countryrock/kraut combo.

He's got a new one due out May 3. This one's called Modern Country.

Sorry June 3.

http://www.mergerecords.com/william-tyler-previews-modern-country

some cool sounds in that teaser vid ...

Awesome! This should be perfect for my Arizona vacation.

that is a very strange and kind of dumb video but yeah it sounds great

haha yeah the trailer is a bit much but the music in the background was SUPER promising, def the direction i was hoping he'd go in

yeah that last bit sounded great, pretty reich-ian... did not actually watch the vid.

yeah he must be using more loop pedals and stuff

i just thought of the DN "william tylerw", not gonna use it just had to get it out of my system

Super excited for this. Already pre-ordered.

Yeah, watching the video again, it is a bit heavy handed. But the music sounds really great.

Did anyone get that split thing he did with Six Organs of Admittance? This guy: https://www.discogs.com/Six-Organs-Of-Admittance-William-Tyler-Parallelogram/release/7950918

yeah his side is great (and streamable here - http://threelobed.bandcamp.com/album/parallelogram-5). six organs side is fab as well. my favorite out of all of those parallelogram things.

Cheers, Tyler. Listening now — totally good.

Wish I could buy it, though. For less than a hundred dollars or whatever.

yeah it is steep! nothing bad on the whole set though ... some of the artists were selling individual copies, but i don't know if six organs/tyler got around to that...

Well, you can buy the individual tracks on the bandcamp page, so I guess I'll settle for that, for now.

I wonder if Phil Cook's album Southland Mission is worth checking out? He has collaborated with William Tyler in the past.

I'd recommend the Phil Cook record, for sure. Feels a *little* too close to being a 'found' classic for its own good, but it's a great listen.

Phil Cook album didn't "catch" for me, but I also probably didn't give it enough of a chance. I want/ed to like it, for sure.

Tyler on the other hand, I'm a mega-stan. Excited for this album, loved the trailer. He put out a very similar feeling trailer for Impossible Truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd0Jsyw_JDw

They are heavy handed, but I guess I feel like they're almost ... not cheekily, but knowingly so? ... I dunno, maybe I am giving him too much credit and he's just this way. (He's definitely sharp as a tack and a "big" thinker, having talked to him about some of this stuff.) But most of all I like that he's done a couple now and I hope he keeps doing them. I think they'd be fun to gather together after 10 albums or whatever.

Hmm, watching the Impossible Truth trailer, seems like he plays a bit from every song on the album. Contrasting that with the new one, he's only previewing one or two new songs. That actually makes me even more excited for Modern Country; like he's hiding more, in anticipation of a bigger reveal.

or it's just one long motorik-appalachian henry flynty jam, which is also super ok with me

Well, yeah.

There cannot be enough "long motorik-appalachian henry flynty jam"s, sincerely would take all I can get of this sound.

Yep. My expectations for Modern Country are fairly high because of that.

'Gone Clear'

my goodness. love it.

yeah, very nice!
haven't listened yet but this mix he put together for aquarium drunkard looks good: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2016/04/12/aquarium-drunkard-presents-sebastian-speaks-a-mixtape/

also worth noting that Chuck Johnson's last record Velvet Arc covers some of the same territory as Tyler ... really wonderful record.

^^ thank you for mentioning it, love Chuck and keep meaning to check it out

'Kingdom of Jones'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDV2tJI3CMU

Got this in the mail today and have just put it on now.

'Highway Anxiety': holy hell, this is gonna be good.

Yeah, this album is fantastic.

Sublime.

It sounds wonderful on the first listen. I'm gonna have another listen later after a smoke.

this is a pretty good shadowfax album

i wish shadowfax actually sounded like this

ha, yeah, maybe i haven't heard the right shadowfax? there are definitely some proggy moments on Modern Country, but I dunno if it's overtly 'fax-y.

i like it, it just feels kinda safe and new age-y. maybe i got too excited after the rother cover on lost colony

Ha, there's nothing even remotely new age-y about Modern Country.

This is gorgeous. Perfect wake-up music.

this is really great.

that's my four-word review.

This is easily in my three favourite albums of the year, I love how it's a country record, an ambient record and a sort of post-rock record all at once, except way more melodically engaging than that implies.

I've been craving really gentle music over the last few weeks so it's been getting a lot of play in my house.

Yep, it's a total winner. Didn't know if he would be able to follow up Impossible Truth given the high quality of that album, but he somehow managed.

ya rly enjoying this but like i said in the folk/fahey thread

if you like this do your yrself a favour and hunt down loose furs first album bc it has a similar vibe tho its a bit more noisier with some freakouts

This reminds me so much of Michael Rother solo stuff like Flammende Herzen. Warm, melodic, romantic and metaphysical at the same time. Album of the year from what I have heard - which is not a lot - up till now.

Yeah, 'Highway Anxiety' in particular has strong Rother vibes.

http://thirdmanstore.com/tmr-live/live-12-series/william-tyler-live-at-third-man-records-12?___SID=U
Live at Third Man Records to be released at the end of this month. Recorded in 2014 (short review here), it contains an early version of "Gone Clear", then called "Going Clear". Curious to hear how he pulls that one off acoustically.

yeah this is really nice

This snuck in at 57th out of 57 (so far) in my big secret albums of the year list, indicating that I liked it just enough to consider it a good album. Will definitely give it another go at some point

Any other music by not-Kurt Lambchop people worth exploring?

New album Goes West out January 2019. First available track sounds great but feels a little too comfy maybe... Bill Frisell guests on the album closer!
https://youtu.be/br4BRG_RXO0

count me in!

lovely song, I like the concise approach

Preordered.

Lovely listen.

new album is out

Mine came in the mail on Wednesday, but I have not done the digital download yet, so I've not listened (no internet on my PC at the new place, so I'm stuck downloading to an external drive and handling things from there).

It came with a CD that has eight extra tracks. Gonna finish a new recording this evening and then dig in.

Excited.

I've made some utterly unfair judgments based on the tracklist alone: I like rambling, drifting Tyler best of all and this is made up of short tracks.

This is super mellow and super good.

The bonus disc is called Dispatches from Echo Magic and is mostly made up of demos of songs on the album. It's nice.

I was oblivious to this preorder only bonus disc thing now I feel like I'm missing out!

Was really digging “Venus in Aquarius,” wish there was a little more variation like that on the album but it’s all very nice.

Evan, I will share Dispatches, if you are interested. It's good if you REALLY like Goes West and want more.

The more I listen to this, the more I like it. It's easily his accessible work yet, but there is an ethereal, yet undeniably bright, timbre to the whole thing that just doesn't sound like anything else he's ever done. There is an irreverent, but melancholy, mood to it that makes it sound like it's being beamed in from an alternate mid-1970s. A place where John Fahey and Leo Kottke are the ultimate rock stars and Blood on the Tracks actually saved Bob Dylan and his marriage. The only bad news is from the past and nothing's perfect, but it's better than it used to be.

Yeah, I think I like this new one.

okay fine i’ll listen. the new steve gunn still sounds boring to me. you’re getting to me ogmor

I can't get enough of this album. It's like, what if Michael Rother started hanging out with Bert Jansch and then he followed Bert to LA, started playing acoustic a little more often, and, around the time Bert makes Avocet, he makes Michael Rother Goes West.

William Tyler coming through with a nice spectral projection.

Man in a Hurry is gorgeous.

https://williamtyler.bandcamp.com/album/new-vanitas

i haven't even listened to it yet, just saw it on his bandcamp right now and holy shit, new william tyler!

after one listen, this is the surprise of the year so far for me. modern country and goes west were awesome, don't get me wrong, but they feel a little too overproduced in retrospect. this new one goes back to his older, more sparse approach. maybe that was out of necessity, as this year has constricted a lot of people in a lot of ways. references to heaven and "the big sky" in the song titles up the emotive ante significantly. all that combined with his more prominent use of pitch vibrato effects and the seemingly intentional 'throwback' aesthetic of the cover art make this seem like something beamed in from the past at some unknown, but vaguely familiar point.

besides all that, it's reaffirmation from one of my old favorites of his undeniably classic status; and doubly rewarding, as i had perhaps started to neglect him in more recent times.

here's the cover art, btw:
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1109290106_10.jpg

also: an appropriate alternate title for this one could have been wt goes boc.

can't say enough good things about this record.

i was listening to this on my morning walk Friday and came to the realization that, in a quiet, sort of understated way (meaning sometimes i forget), WT has become one of my very favorite artists going.

this has been on constant rotation since friday. easily his best work since lost colony and easily in my top three of the year so far.

i'm real excited for this.

I loved New Vanitas, what is "this"?

oh duh I just saw that's a link

awesome, nabbed a vinyl preorder

Love Tyler, love Marissa Anderson even more, they seem like they should be a good fit

i wish they were doing a regular black vinyl version. fuck that bullshit colored garbage. yuck.

that said, cover art's amazing.

and the teaser track is excellent. very stoked for this.

It is not explicit but it may be implied a regular version will follow(?); Thrill Jockey website says purple is "mail order only" version. IDK!

It is not explicit but it may be implied a regular version will follow(?); Thrill Jockey website says purple is "mail order only" version. IDK!

― Evan, Friday, April 30, 2021 4:09 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah goddamn...oh well

Fwiw, I've seen that with other Thrill Jockey releases they'll do a colored vinyl release first and then a standard black when that sells out.

I don't mind the color vinyl. I don't have enough high-end equipment to pretend it makes a difference for me personally.

i just don't like colored vinyl because, well idk, i like THE ACTUAL MUSIC????

sorry, i'll stop being a cynical dickhead now.

NEW WILLIAM TYLER YASSZZZ BITCHEZZZ!!!!

Colored vinyl is fine, no more likely to have a bad pressing than black these days (IME).

Thanks for the link, got a copy.

The music is there either way! Plus if all I was in it for was the MUSIC I wouldn't be buying clunky giant wax discs that only work at home with annoying and sometimes stressful to set up equipment, so I'm not going to kid myself, I am an irrational object collector hoarder and I am proud content with it.

don't get me wrong, i'm a stubborn jerk and i'm mostly making fun of myself. i pre-ordered the vinyl anydamnway lol.

There's another new William Tyler release! It's also on Spotify, so we're listening now — only one track in, but it's very "cosmic"; nice!!!

well, fuck. get well soon!

Y’all I hate this but - despite following all CDC guidelines in the last year and being fully vaccinated I received a positive Covid test this morning. Effective immediately I am canceling all my shows in the next week

— william tyler (@williamtylertn) July 23, 2021

Lost Futures is out today.

first listen now and it's very. . . eerie and haunting, but also very beautiful in spots. i really love how the recording sounds, very earthy and kind of lofi. seems like a darn good record.

hope wt is on the mend.

New album is excellent

I think it's great, I think they mesh very well together. I consider Marisa Anderson on a bit of a higher level than Tyler, but they are both great and this feels like it has elements of each of their music and a lot of stuff that feels unique to this project

vinyl is colored unfortunately but seems to be a good pressing

I'm not in love with it yet but need to listen more. Marisa has an effortless looseness and William was always among the stiffest sounding players imo, so it was interesting to hear what they came up with together.

Something Will Come gives me agita but the rest of the album is very cinematic, very comfortable, very warm. I agree that the mix of styles is obvious but I like how they mesh. Deeply enjoyable for me.

lost futures prompted me to go back to luke schneider collaboration, understand and i have to say, i will need to put this one back in regular rotation. i listened to it a bit when it was first released, but got caught up in saultmania yet again. listening to understand a bit closer now and i really am enjoying it quite a bit.

Quick note that Tyler and others have an awesome livestream show tonight, get tickets and watch!

Tonight ⚡ There is still time to get your ticket for Music for India, a special live concert to enjoy from home with @MoM_official featuring visuals by @reas & voice by Louis Chude-Sokei, joined by @SadierLae, @AmirthaKidambi, & @williamtylertn

Tickets: https://t.co/e7b06b56WV

— Gray Area (@GrayAreaorg) August 28, 2021

A couple years back I saw Tyler & Sarah Lipstate of Noveller play a show together at the Getty Center. It was a great pairing of seemingly disparate sounds and I was hoping that they would collaborate more since.

I can't keep this guy and William Howard straight in my mind

Oops I meant to post that in the other thread

I'm having lunch and watching r/place unfold and his cover of "Karussell" came on. Perfect soundtrack.

YAASSSSSSS!!!!!!

This is great. So stoked to hear his playing in this context. Pre-ordered the album before the song was half over.

luke schneider's on it too! this album's gonna be rad af.

lost futures prompted me to go back to luke schneider collaboration, understand and i have to say, i will need to put this one back in regular rotation. i listened to it a bit when it was first released, but got caught up in saultmania yet again. listening to understand a bit closer now and i really am enjoying it quite a bit.

― things repeat forever and there never is a remedy (Austin), Saturday, August 28, 2021 11:52 AM

in anticipation of secret stratosphere, i'm revisiting this again and i'm ready to plant my flag: understand is maybe the best thing wt has done so far.

Given the proximity of your recommendation of this to your post in the Fahey thread, Austin, I had a good feeling as to what this would sound like and... damn. Not sure how I'd missed until now. Right up my, ah, dried up gulch.

Posts with frankly appallingly striking imagery (and too many adjectives).

me and global and co. got to open for him and Marisa Anderson and he could not have been nicer

so yeah, there is definitely a kraftwerk cover on the new album.

"our favorite blue oyster cult song" ftw

wt is the f'kn man.

A couple years back we saw WT play with Noveller out in the courtyard of the Getty Center. They sounded great just winging it together and I've always hoped that they would make a record.

Yeah, that Kraftwerk cover didn't register when I saw the tracklist, but I was absolutely thrilled when I realized what that song was evolving into.

Oh this is really good. I love him overall, but nice to hear him in this live rock mode.

lol

he finishes playing "Whole New Dude" and says:

"that was a cover of a song by Rusted Root"

Stumbled across him via the mentions in the AOTY so far thread (sucker for a Kraftwerk cover). Really lovely, kosmische pedal steel reminds me a little of Raymond Richards' The Lost Art of Wandering. Huh, guess I've heard him before via Kelly Reichardt's First Cow!

new jams with mr hebden. very not bad!

Yeah I really like that. Also I see he's coming to town with his band in September, looking forward to it. I've seen him before but in more meditative mode.

Saw him with the band tonight in Chicago. I haven't heard that live album from last year, so I wasn't expecting it to be so loud and rockin', but I enjoyed it.

This live album is incredible. Dude absolutely rocks. Is the rest of his stuff like this?

Not exactly, that album is his most Rock thing. I love it too. The songs on it are mostly from his other albums, but the original versions are in general more meditative. All good tho! Impossible Truth and Modern Country are good places to start.

Yeah I'd heard of the bloke but thought he was a country singer-songrwiter type so didn't bother to check him out. I'll go diving in to see what else he's got, thanks for the recs

I think the Lost Colony EP is closest to the live album.

Impossible Truth is some great wide open desert music

also highly recommend the album he did a couple years ago with Marisa Anderson, Lost Futures

his first album Behold the Spirit is kind of forgotten now but it's great, a little more towards the Fahey side of things

his EP with Luke Schneider is gorgeous twangy ambient music, too

dude doesn't miss as far as i'm concerned

the Secret Stratosphere is a hall-of-fame live album and deserves all the praise. only wish "high anxiety" went closer to the original's length.

update on his instagram last week that he's canceling the rest of his tour to deal with a mental health crisis/alcoholism. he's always seemed like a really sweet dude, hope he gets all the help he needs.

wt 😥

cosign, don't know him personally but he just permeates good vibes. he also had covid twice.

he's got an incredibly musical mind and i have faith that his best material has yet to come to fruition. really can't help but cry at this news.

Upset to learn that he's struggling. Austin OTM that his best work is still to come

Damn, really get a lot from his music. Hope he can find his way back to health

https://williamtyler.bandcamp.com/album/time-indefinite

❤️‍🔥😡FUCK YEAH THE RETURN OF WT😡❤️‍🔥

Yeah, super happy to see that and encouraged by the sample tracks. Instant pre-order.

so i posted before listening.

this is something else entirely.

of course i think it's really good too, but wow.

Yeah, it's a major departure for him, but it's great!

Instant pre-order for me. 100% love the three tracks and the turn into the unknown

Yup, gonna be great!

had to pause about 30 seconds into that because i don't want to spoil too much... yeah, was not expecting that!

I am so excited for this album, and so happy to hear this new direction. Awesome.

My first thought was he must have been spending time with Alan Sparhawk

Was thinking more BJ Burton, but yeah

Sitting on my couch yelling just pick up the damn guitar

There’s a lot of guitar on two of the three preview tracks?

hp: do you prefer his more rock-oriented stuff? seems so from your previous postings. there's definitely guitar on this new material, but his playing isn't really "country of illusion" or "highway anxiety" either - moreso an added layer. traditional song structures were already very loosely followed anyway in his music, but time indefinite doesn't seem too concerned about that at all lol.

is anyone else getting caretaker vibes from this material?

I keep thinking of that Tyler + Noveller show I talked about upthread. Less songs, more structure!

Sorry there wasn't much thought to my post! Just shock reaction to the first 30 seconds of the first new song but I like his new stuff (and his guitar playing on it!)

more thoughts later, but this now: the preview tracks indicated exactly what this was going to be, but i still was surprised by it.

so i want to call this album "FAHEYTRONICA" and i have to credit ilxor dow for that tag. they were the first i've seen use it to describe that tape collage/field recording/guitar sonnet mosaic form that fahey would do sometimes. william tyler has sporadically put these kinds of songs on his albums previously, but they always felt afterthoughts or extended interludes. time indefinite aims to use that form and apply it to wt's romantic hindsight view of americana. and it feels like a healing trip into the past for him: there are moments of pure major key eveloping consonance here that only seemed to be hinted at on past records. it's definitely kind of an experimental thing tho, too. lots of post-production and the manipulation of the sources oftentimes plays a role in the structure of the songs moreso than the music. where his past attempts at faheytronica were well-intentioned, but kind of half-baked, this is the deep dive and real deal.

and again: fleeting as they may be, this album has some of the most harmonious and beautiful moments i've heard in a while.

very firm four mics. like all of his best moments, it's a blanket if you're chilly or sunscreen if you need some respite.

This is astounding, just absolutely gorgeous.

really beautiful album

Didn't expect this!

https://fourtet.bandcamp.com/album/41-longfield-street-late-80s

(Click through, there's a reason I've linked that.)

nice!!

Wow that is unexpected and great news!

very cool. "darkness darkness" goes back into rotation to anticipate!

preview track is great and needing to be put away. because sheesh, this ain't available in full till september! dang. fairly convinced it'll rule. back to time indefinite for now. wt≠on cooldown

Looking forward to checking out the album, and this NTS show -
https://www.nts.live/shows/four-tet/episodes/four-tet-hearts-of-age-w-william-tyler-kieran-hebden-15th-september-2025

album is wonderful

Starting up a listen now.

It's sounding glorious. The cover, on the other hand, wtf.

Opening and closing tracks are great but the rest is kinda noodly and slight? Might need time for the cohesion to emerge.

just did my first listen and I would agree with that, it sounds like they are having fun in the studio and going wherever the muse takes them without a ton of focus on tightening things up. that said these are two of my favorite musicians who I never expected to see collaborate, so I really liked almost all of it and expect I will only come to like it more with future listens.

really enjoying this and don't mind the drifty, low stakes vibes at all

what's wtf about the cover? it's just them walking down the street

yeah just dudes being dudes

Chicago underground duo released a great record few weeks back with same album cover idea too
doesn't seem bad to me I dunno

Ech, it's fine I guess. Just two dudes walking down the street thinking baout things.

all I want is “william tyler thinking baout things” music tbf

dudes rock

quick thoughts:

.i get what ya'll're saying with regards to it feeling a little directionless and "jammy", if you will. in that sense, it reminds me very much of older wt material such as behold the spirit or the paper hats record, in that most of it is more akin to drone philosophy.

."musical mark twain" came to mind while listening: taking the most whimsical/mundane and treating it with pure reverence.

.i cried through most of it.

.definitely feels of a piece with time indefinite. an analogy: that's his mo'wax album, this one's on 4ad.

.all that to not to discount four tet's input. it still blows my mind that these dudes crossed paths. who would've guessed!?

aoty? nah, but wt is my 2025 mvp nom.

Really recommend this album by Toronto home producer SHiFFRA (of which I am but one of three paying fans on BC) for anybody into the Tyler/Hebden collab, although this is much less FX-ed out and moody/Ableton-y, and much more blissed-out and breakbeat-y/AudioMulch-ish (or at least harkening back to that era), and so maybe taking things back to a Rounds tip w/r/t KH (although SHiFFRA themself types that Lemon Jelly and 9 Lazy 9 are more actual/outright influences on them and this album): https://shiffra.bandcamp.com/album/tepidarium

First track and last track are my favs. Reminds me a bit of Mountains, for those who remember them.

This record goes by in a flash. Apparently 'Timber' is the only one where they're playing guitar together, the rest was Kieran directing WT in the studio/gathering parts and putting it all together later.