Takatsugu Muramatsu Mary & The Witches Flower Vinyl LP 2018

The Grand Old Trout
Pretty Weeds Revisited
Lower Chestnut
Naturita
I Heard Them Singing
Stretching My Dollar in Piano
Lonesome Traveler
Dragonfly

It’s been nearly two years since Bill MacKay and Ryley Walker’s much-admired 2015 collaboration, Land of Plenty, and SpiderBeetleBee more than makes up for lost time, with rich, resonant performances that elevate the sound of the guitar duo as they work with an ever-widening panorama of styles.

Their first album was developed over a month-long live residency at Chicago bar The Whistler, and reflected MacKay and Walker’s shared joy in a new relationship with a kindred spirit, in playing that might wordlessly finish a phrase or suggest a direction, as they spoke through their guitars. SpiderBeetleBee continues fluidly down the path of their initial psych-folk-blues-raga tandem, brewing further explorations in mixed-and-matched idioms, turning composed melodies inside-out via improvisation and finding in the blend a shared Walker / MacKay pasture, serendipitously found somewhere between Appalachia and the Highlands.