We’re kicking off 2019 with a new Record of the Month Club selection. For January club members will be getting William Tyler’s new album Goes West via Merge Records. William has been a good buddy to the record store since we opened…we even hosted a record release party and in-store performance with him for his last record, Modern Country. His music–all instrumental–is the perfect soundtrack for long drives, wide-open places, and landscapes in your head. It’s chill music, but it’s contemplative. It’s the perfect escape from this crazy world. It’s the perfect music for stormy days or days when the sunshine is warm and the coffee is warmer. We could all use music like that. Thankfully William continues to give us just that!

Club members will be getting quite the package from Merge Records. Not only will you get the limited, Peak Vinyl version (pressed on green vinyl) of the album, but you’ll also get a bonus CD called Dispatches from Echo Magic, which includes early versions of five songs from the album + three other tracks from the recording sessions. Members will also get a SIGNED POSTER featuring the awesome album artwork. 

Sign up now to not miss out.

The release date for Goes West is January 25th.

From Hiss Golden Messenger’s MC Taylor: 

William and I bonded early in our relationship over Barry Hannah, a hellraising writer from Mississippi who practically reinvented the way that words could be assembled on a page. Like Hannah, William Tyler knows the South—as a crucible of American histories and cultures, an entity capable of expansive beauty and incomprehensible violence, often in the same beat—as his native place, the place that holds him and that he runs from. In the music of William Tyler, the South is not apart from America; the South is America condensed. And like Hannah—and this part is important—William moved to California, where Goes West was written. We don’t know how long William will stay—Hannah lasted just a couple of years, writing in the employ of director Robert Altman—but the change of scenery seems to suit him.

Goes West marks a sort of narrowing of focus for William’s music; it sounds as though he found a way to point himself directly towards the rich and bittersweet emotional center of his music without being distracted by side trips. Perhaps this is down to the fact that William only plays acoustic guitar on the album, a clear and conscious decision considering that he is one of Nashville’s great electric guitarists. The band that performs Goes West alongside William—including guitarists Meg Duffy and Bill Frisell, bassist and producer Brad Cook, keyboardist James Wallace, drummer Griffin Goldsmith, and engineer Tucker Martine—is the best and most sympathetic group of players that William could have assembled to play these songs.