Ryan Holweger - The Golden Paper Flower (2025)

Ryan Holweger has a new album just out, The Golden Paper Flower. It’s a fusion of kaleidoscope ethereality grounded in classic folk sounds of banjo and pedal steel and the result is an earnest soul searching that dovetails with the workings of your own imagination as you listen.

The title track opens the album with a rootsy electric allure that’s a low-key psychedelic folk blend, as Ryan’s dreamscape vocals sing of that place you can always be found: “If you don’t know where we’re at / On this late hour / You will find us towards the back / Of the Golden Paper Flower.” Later in the song are low strings in a slower tempo yet edgy arrangement. In “Bleed All Over” the pedal steel swirls and Ryan’s unique vocal style picks up with baritone and groove drums and insightful lines like: “Of all the many hats you’ve worn / I miss the misanthrope and forlorn / Battered, beat-up, and broken down / Despondent, dog-eared, and drug around.” A soulful nostalgia.

Reagan Helen duets with Ryan on “Settle in Easy,” which starts with banjo as the idea of settling in easy but never settling down takes hold. Lines mark a sorrowful ending: “Hold on for a little bit longer now you know / I won’t be in your way / Hold on For a little bit longer now you know / I won’t be in your way.” Reagan’s high vocal harmonies are Northern breezes intwining in the mix.

“Dehydration” is a cosmic ballad with the intriguing tale of spending winter at the fringes: “I spent the winter on the edge of dehydration / Furnace drying out my lungs and my guitar / I spent the winter of the edge of civilization / Everywhere we go is an hour from where we are.” This one is particularly compelling, as banjo makes an appearance as a train of thought, after awhile. It’s a tale of a hard winter and a sparse way of living and is genuinely fabulous. Written by Ryan Lansing, Holweger gives it a depth of resignation.

The songs are perceptive. In “Some Lives” there’s the brutally honest “I will never pretend To believe in someone again / Some lives were made to be wasted / So close now you can almost taste it / Not much further down / You hear that sound? That is failure.” Hits heavy.

“Bird” is an echoey ode to fatherhood and the wonder of a young child and her first words: “We all knew what she would say / It’s always the same first words / She looked out the window and waved / And to her mother, said “bird.”” There’s a sweetness here.

This undiscovered 9-song gem is highly recommended. There’s a touch of heaviness in Ryan’s vocals, and there’s an eerie distance and a bit of psychedelia in the mix as the instruments ground the sound at the same time. The songs are reflective, insightful and true.