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.

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.