Talk West - Black Coral Sprig (2023)

Talk West has forged a small series of intriguing and beautiful missives through the cassette underground with his explorations on guitar and pedal steel. On Black Coral Sprig, Aycock negotiates the terrain between stately and homely by stretching a ringing country tone into an all-encompassing atmosphere, much like the ambient realms of Stars of the Lid. His unhurried, gentle playing style comes to reveal understated textures that weave into a whole alternately spirited, warming and often haunting. It’s a singular style reminiscent of Loren Connor’s astral-blues and Bruce Langhorne’s famed soundtrack for The Hired Hand, which, tellingly, was reissued in 2012 on Aycock’s own Scissor Tail Editions. These spectral, cinematic soundscapes are a future vision of the guitar’s past. "Serene shades of Loren Connors and Bruce Langhorne's The Hired Hand in Dylan Aycock's (Talk West) Black Coral Sprig" - MOJO Coming off like a post-rock Loren Connors, Tulsa's Dylan Aycock (a.k.a. Talk West) plays a sort of disconnected blues, sparse and twinkly and replete with the American guitar idioms we all know and love. On the eleven-minute "Willow and The Dogwood," from Talk West's upcoming debut LP, Black Coral Sprig, tape hiss fills in the negative space between Aycock's melodic noodling, making for a warm atmosphere that hints at the anthemic aspirations of and act like, say, Explosions In The Sky, without the arena-filling histrionics. "Willow and The Dogwood" is subtle and restrained-- uplifting, certainly, but not as straightforward. It would have worked well in an episode of Friday Night Lights. -Adhoc

Tracklist:
1 01. Talk West - Light Black (03:59)
1 02. Talk West - Set Adrift (05:27)
1 03. Talk West - Willow and the Dogwood (11:10)
1 04. Talk West - Gladys (02:45)
1 05. Talk West - Dark White (04:54)
1 06. Talk West - Solitary Blossoms (04:02)
1 07. Talk West - Abode (10:08)