Tyler Ramsey I Carl Broemel :: Celestun
There has always been this fascinating artistic arch connecting Asheville, NC, and Nashville, TN together, and everything in between. From the blisteringly gorgeous sights of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the never-ending narrative that flows through the native noise of Middle Tennessee, there’s so much harmonious history between the two that holds the spiritual stitches of the South together on better terms than some of the more malicious elements of its complicated past. Similar to these two regions and their restless relationship, a few musicians come to mind who have been holding it down for several decades in their respective outfits, projects, and have officially come together for their debut duo during a time where we need more sublime strings and cascading chords surging through our damaged senses now more than ever. Friends and occasional touring partners for well over a decade, Tyler Ramsey (Band of Horses/Floating Action) and Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket), release an entirely instrumental album “Celestun,” except for the track “Nevermind”, and it’s exactly what fans, both new and old, need from these fundamental students of the primitive practises found within the critical catacombs of John Fahey, Joseph Allred, and Jack Rose, to name a few. Where cosmic campfires rest on the biblical banks below the southern sky, a lingering levitation from the past that, while peering through the melodic mist, reveals a subtle, yet spiritual sound from the warm waves of Ramsey and Broemel’s dynamic, blissful brotherhood. Combining one musician’s classically trained tenacity with the other’s feverish finger-picking approach, the duo embraces their latest effort in hopes that it connects those familiar vibrations to the social surface for all to hear and feel through its gravitational grapevine of gentle gestures.
“I’ve always wanted to make an instrumental album. I enjoy instrumental music as much as I enjoy music with lyrics. It’s just a different path. There’s moments in life that call for that kind of thing. I think instrumental music can take you places sometimes that lyrics can’t.”
Having first met back in 2012, a time when we feared the mystical takeover of the Mayan calendar would end the world, during a My Morning Jacket tour, where Band of Horses acted as supporters, the two connected on a melodically metaphysical plane, and have since sonically sealed the critical connection by manifesting a collection of nine tracks since the imprisonment of the pandemic. Musicians have that poetic privilege of productivity that becomes a physically tangible thing in the end. Whereas if you don’t put that stress, emotion, motivation, and visceral vision into something, it might just implode, resulting in catastrophe and the potential for pain. These two musicians used their time wisely by joining forces to create a lyricless love language that acts as both a background for better times ahead and the soothing soundscapes of the present moment. Sometimes the guitars write the songs for you. Just moving your hands around and letting things happen. It’s hard to describe how to write an instrumental guitar piece. For me, it does seem to kind of come out of the guitar, more than out of my brain,” says Broemel about his connection to the craft of instrumental storytelling. It’s almost ghostly the way legends such as Sandy Bull or Robbie Basho told stories through their iconic instrumentation, and here we are decades later with a similar yet completely different take on that poetic phenomenon. Featuring tracks like “Elizabeth Brown”, “Last Tarot”, a beautiful rendition of Neil Young’s “Sail Away” off his 1979 masterpiece “Rust Never Sleeps”, and “Flying Things”, which features the Muscle Shoals, Alabama-based sister duo The Secret Sisters, “Celestun” is packed with natural resources, as it takes listeners through the vibrant valleys brimming with southern solace.
