William Tyler

After Reinvigorating Instrumental Americana On Modern Country, William Tyler Is Now Setting His Eyes On The Sunset With His Acoustic-Led Latest, Goes West.

- Matt Parker

Nashville native William Tyler unveiled “his eulogy for a dying rural America” Modern Country in 2016. A record of instrumental, electric guitar-led pieces, it documented a blend of rusting rural scenes and peaceful nowheres without uttering a word. Which is ironic, given that Tyler’s roots lie in the innovative acoustic work of American primitive players like John Fahey and Leo Kottke. “To me every album is a way of changing the conversation about instrumental music,” says Tyler. “A lot of the songs I had for Modern Country were more like themes. I thought there were some things we could pull from that that weren’t just solo acoustic guitar reference points… Bill Frisell and Ry Cooder and 70s soundtracks, stuff like that.”

Regardless of the motivations, it connected in a big way, cementing a place on countless end-of-year round-ups in the process. “It was a breakout,” he acknowledges. “I saw it being that way because it was a very high-fidelity, arranged record and about as commercial as I could make instrumental music, not that that’s ever the motivation…”