"Meanwhile, his daytime trade as a geologist brought him from his home turf near Nashville to the Pacific Northwest, that rugged place whose seismic activity seems to thrum like the gears of a great subconscious. It's safe to say country music is in his blood-and so, one can imagine, are the seams of magma that crisscross the Ring of Fire. His new album Paleo Sol is like a seance with the elements."
"Paleo Sol comes on the heels of Live at the 13th Moon Gravity Well, recorded with the Unit at a Portland watering hole. Those four long improvisations were like offerings to placate the spirits of the still-rumbling Mount St. Helens, whose catastrophic 1980 eruption was the first of its magnitude to be studied with modern instruments. The tracks here are shorter, often resembling the plangent interludes one finds studded across Boards of Canada albums, but dressed up in Western wear."
Barry Walker Jr. blends pedal steel, electric and acoustic guitars to create ambient country textures that evoke seismic landscapes. His bends and sighs appear on records by Mouth Painter, North Americans, the Rose City Band and Jeffrey Silverstein and on solo and band projects. Daytime work as a geologist brought him from near Nashville to the Pacific Northwest, informing a sensibility attuned to tectonic forces. Paleo Sol features shorter, plangent tracks resembling Boards of Canada interludes but dressed in Western wear. Walker recorded with Jason Willmon (bass) and Rob Smith (drums) and lets instruments speak through thick pedal-steel sheets. Tracks range from bucolic atmospheres like "Quiessence" to portentous bends recalling Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's rudra veena.
Read at Pitchfork
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