Barry Walker Jr. is a pedal steel guitarist whose technical prowess is rooted in traditional forms and whose compositions push into entirely new frontiers. Rooted in country and folk traditions, his playing explores minimalism, ambient and spiritual music. The Portland-based instrumentalist’s playing is in high demand: in addition to his six solo records recorded under various monikers and collaborative projects Mouth Painter and North Americans, Walker has appeared on dozens of records and performed live with fellow Portlander Marisa Anderson and the late Michael Hurley. His playing with Rose City Band is lauded for its drive and how deftly it intertwines with lead guitarist Ripley Johnson, alchemizing what is often described as “the magic.” His latest work, Paleo Sol, is a collaboration with drummer Rob Smith (Animal, Surrender!, Gray/Smith, Rhyton, Pigeons) and bassist Jason Willmon (Mouth Painter, Fruited Planes). The album’s pedal steel melodies and finger-picked guitar figures create aural ranges and basins, its sonic landscapes carved by percussion and the warm drive of the bass. Drummer Rob Smith says of the record: “This country music is not adherent to ambient, cosmic, or minimalist aesthetics, but it does ignore property lines and takes its cues from the earth and the sky nevertheless. Instead of kicking the stalls and chomping at the bit, we gently pick the lock and slip out into the starry night.”

This album embodies a longer, geological view of time, but one punctuated by fits of beauty and despair; as above, so below. The patient pieces celebrate the ripples of change throughout the ages and the perspective of such a broad view. At times the trio acts as a singular voice, each accentuating the central motion lead by Walker, like the slow roll of “Under Leaf Hill” or the dotted constellation of “Sentient Lithosphere”. Ensemble pieces such as “Leaving Lower Big Basin” are expansive soundscapes, while the solo pieces like “A Trip Into Town” harness an intimate elegance. Smith notes: “We only see geological shifts when weather and water slice into the landscape. The drums are not keeping time as much as evidencing its elasticity, mixing into the other instruments, changing phase states. Heat, pressure, chemistry.” Every gesture on the album is rich with intention, moving with a graceful reverence.

The pieces of Paleo Sol act as miniature topographical surveys, dioramas for the complex layers of andesite, mudstone, and ash compressed by time into rock formations. Walker’s acumen as a composer, instrumentalist and bandleader take center stage as the intricate inner workings of each piece reveals themselves through the unraveling of time. “In human reckoning, the essence of the solid earth is mostly still,” Walker adds. “Those engaged in deep time inquiry recognize the vigor of Earth’s behavior, but quiescence is a part of the action.”

Paleo Sol was composed during a monumental shift in Walker’s own life as he and his wife, Valerie, welcomed their first child. The compositions are informed by those early nights, aiming for more serene, gentle passages and taking inspiration from lullabies, twilight, and new life blossoming, like the elves of Cuiviénen, despite what came after. Walker, a geologist, named the album in part after rocks called paleosols, which are ancient soils that are variably rusted and leached of their original components, plentiful in the John Day and Clarno Formations Walker has studied for years. The name takes on a dual meaning that reaches for an even deeper history, that of the ancient sun (the sun that broke apart the ancient water vapor, the sun that bore down on the Eohippus, the sun that brightens the tail of the comet, the sun that will be recycled billions of years hence). Walker’s approach to interrogating the earth and its shifts runs parallel to his approach to music: “The possibilities and uncertainty of pedal steel guitar often disorient me as a player and as a listener. The same is true for scientific exploration. Realizing the structural and harmonic components of a composition demands from me preparation, intense creativity, luck, and discipline, much like science.” On Paleo Sol, Barry Walker Jr. unearths new dimensions of his singular voice as a composer and as pedal steel player.