Photo by Phil Clarkin
Dylan Golden Aycock is widely recognized as a guitarist, and rightfully so. As an alumnus of the esteemed Imaginational Anthem compilation series (on the Tompkins Square label) —a credential that speaks volumes to his six-string prowess—he undeniably possesses the skill to coax truly resonant sounds from his instrument. Spanning twelve years, the seven tracks of No New Summers (Feeding Tube Records / Worried Songs), coalesce loosely around the theme of diminishing novelty with age, a lengthy gestation that explains the album’s rich tapestry of ideas. Take “Buoyant”, for instance: it’s built upon a foundation of bowed upright bass, interwoven with gathered sounds and field recordings to create an intriguing blend of industrial experimentation and a sun-drenched lightness. Subtly layered shimmers, chimes, and pulses reward attentive listening, revealing a strange and wonderful creation.
In stark contrast, the opening track, “No Spring Chicken”, ironically bursts forth with a rapid, sharply picked acoustic guitar, immediately evoking the spirit of John Fahey’s monumental “Night Train of Valhalla.” Despite this nod, the album’s diversity remains striking; each song offers a distinct sonic landscape. “Good Directions”, a truly beautiful piece, unfolds with a hazy, dreamlike quality, anchored by soft percussion, gentle acoustic guitar, and the ethereal tones of what sounds like pedal steel. It’s simply great.
The pedal steel takes center stage on tracks like “Unanchored”, though processed to mimic the textures of a cello and oboe. Coupled with added strings, the effect lends the arrangement an orchestral feel, transforming the song into a slightly distorted piece of classical music. Another pedal steel showcase, “Light Peeking Through”, adopts a darker and more minimalist approach, with fellow pedal steel player Gary Peters contributing low notes to temper the song’s potential sweetness.
The title track, “No New Summers”, feels central to the album’s theme, having been written more recently. Surprisingly recorded in a single take without overdubs, it presents a bizarre, reverb-drenched soundscape with an otherworldly aura. Slow, overlapping electric guitar chords create a hypnotic wash of sound against a vast sonic backdrop, providing a fitting and extraordinary conclusion to the collection. This is an album that demands and rewards repeated, close listening, a testament to an artist daring to push boundaries and deliver truly remarkable music.
Much appreciation to Dylan for taking time out to answer my inquiries.
James Broscheid: The Guitar soli style seems to be evolving with artists like Daniel Bachman and Liam Grant pushing boundaries. Do you feel a conscious desire to move beyond the traditional “American Primitive” sound, and if so, what aspects are you intentionally exploring or challenging on No New Summers?
Dylan Golden Aycock: I wouldn’t say it’s conscious, I love that style of music. I just have been feeling more moody lately I guess so the stuff I’ve been making has had that sound and when I was first falling in love with American Primitive music or just solo acoustic guitar music, what drew me to it was the feeling of being outside playing in the park and it really reminds me of a time when life felt a bit more romantic than it does right now. I know that is a depressing response but it’s also what this current album is about.
JB: No New Summers is garnering comparisons to John Fahey. How do you see your work in relation to the legacy of artists like Fahey? Do you feel a connection, or are you actively trying to forge a distinct path?
DGA: My personal feeling about this album is that it is pretty far from that Takoma style of music. (Founded by guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s and named after his hometown of Takoma Park, Maryland, _Takoma Records was a small yet significantly influential record label – JB). I’m playing pedal steel and upright bass on half the album and the other half is 12 string guitar and only one song (“No Spring Chicken”) is 6 string acoustic and to be honest I wrote and recorded that in 2013 in Belgium. I was very obsessed with that style of music at the time in my mid twenties and I couldn’t put the guitar down for more than an hour. That one came out without forcing it at all.
JB: You founded Scissor Tail Records. How does being a label owner influence your own creative process and your perspective on the current landscape of instrumental guitar music?
DGA: It’s effected me for sure. It might be a little bit responsible for my move away from solo acoustic guitar these last 5-8 years. I get a lot of demos and have now listened to just about every album in that style from the 60’s to today and you start to hear patterns that you can’t un-hear when it comes to open tunings and that chugging thumb picking. That’s not to say there’s not tons of people innovating and writing beautiful music that is fresh and unlike other stuff I’ve heard. For instance, I love everything Joseph Allred makes and I love a lot of instrumental guitar music that is more jazz leaning like Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Chris Weisman, etc. There’s people that are in that Fahey world who compose in a way that isn’t drone-y and is much more planned out like Nathan Salsburg, Hayden Pedigo and William Tyler. Not to say I don’t love the droned out stuff, I tend to zone out and compose that way more often than not.
JB: The title No New Summers and the theme of “fading excitement and less newness as one ages” are intriguing. Can you elaborate on the personal experiences or observations that inspired this theme?
DGA: It’s nothing too deep but it hit me one day that in a metaphorical way there’s really no new summers as you get older. I know that doesn’t mean literally and also doesn’t mean you can’t have new fun experiences. But when you’re a kid you look forward to summer so much and your concept and experience of time is also so different. Time feels slower because you’re probably more present when you’re a kid and also the main thought was that certain experiences you can only experience for the first time once. Those experiences feel so big when you’re little. I’d give examples but I don’t want to list a bunch of personal childhood experiences. I hope you can imagine your own and remember how they felt when listening to the album.
JB: Twelve years is a significant timeframe for an album’s creation. How did the songs evolve over that period? Were there specific moments or discoveries that shaped their final forms?
DGA: Yeah, there’s a lot of songs on there that evolved over that time period. I have multiple takes of every song except the title track. That one came out in one take exactly how I felt. Also, like I mentioned earlier, “No Spring Chicken” also came out in one take, but I had this tiny Regal acoustic that I was traveling with and it sounded so thin but the performance was exactly how I wanted it to sound. It was very close to an improvisation but I probably worked out two parts ahead of time and the rest just happened. I was staying in a squat with my girlfriend at the time in Ghent, Belgium and it was this big building that had multiple floors so I tried to find the quietest floor to record on and wrote and recorded the song in about an hour. When I got back home I tried multiple times to re-record it with better equipment and guitar but I could never capture the moment in a way that didn’t feel inauthentic. The song was called “Agam Das” for 12 years until I was compiling all the songs for this album and I felt like the title needed to change and wanted to match the vibe of the rest of the record. Also “Old Haunt” was an idea I came up with while on tour another time in Europe. We had a break in Boxmeer, Netherlands for a week and I was really bored so I was coming up with new right hand finger patterns on 12-string in this very weird tuning that is not an open tuning. I figured out the tuning while trying to learn a traditional Irish song called “Where Are You (Tonight I Wonder)” performed by a few people; June Tabor, Andy M Stewart & Emmett Kelly. I was just messing around with the tuning since it’s odd and came up with a picking pattern I’d never seen before. It’s hard to replicate and unfortunately I never composed enough of a song that day to record more than just the pattern and struggled to replicate it on the album the way I did in the short video I recorded as a place holder.
JB: Do you get the opportunity to play live all that often these days?
DGA: I don’t play live very often. I don’t enjoy performing to be honest. I like playing music with my friends for fun and I often play drums for lots of bands but I get to be in the background and I can just turn my brain off for the most part and keep the groove. I have a hard time staying present while performing music from an album I’ve made. I feel like I’m at a recital. If I got a few people to play some of the accompanying sounds then I bet I would enjoy it a lot more. If the right venue and booking comes up I sometimes will suck it up and make something happen but I haven’t performed solo since 2019. I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma and I will say it’s getting better all the time for (the) arts. I still can’t imagine playing my music in a loud bar here. It just doesn’t sound fun to me.
Photo by Jess Price
JB: There are many diverse sonic textures across the album, from the industrial experimental sound of “Buoyant” to the classical feel of “Unanchored.” Could you discuss your approach to sound design and experimentation on this record?
DGA: “Unanchored” is definitely an example of me trying to experiment with a new tool. That track is just layers on layers of pedal steel run through a pedal that simulates different orchestral instruments. I got it to try and recreate my favorite choral track of all time called “The Road Home” (Stephen Paulus, Amercian Classical Composer). I never could do it any justice. The original is so perfect and I highly recommend people check it out. But what came from that was three long improvisations. Two of them are on a tape I did with Gary Peters called The Different Same (Scissor Tail Records, 2022). The one that I liked the most ended up as “Unanchored.”
JB: “Buoyant” is described as being built around a bowed upright bass with field recordings. What was the genesis of this track, and how did you weave these disparate elements together?
DGA: This one as well as “Unanchored” are obviously playing on the theme of ocean water and sort of floating untethered. I didn’t make the songs with the intention of connecting them to water or calling them that. Though when I hear those songs I picture being out in the middle of the ocean. I’ve been feeling that way a lot lately.
JB: “No Spring Chicken” ironically evokes Fahey’s “Night Train of Valhalla.” Was this a deliberate nod, or is this more a subconscious influence? How do you reconcile that with the album’s overall aim to expand beyond established norms?
DGA: I don’t know, let me pause to listen to that song. I will say first that the aim of the album isn’t to “expand beyond established norms.” There’s no aim to the album outside of paying homage to childhood. I can’t really imagine setting an intention like the one you mentioned. If there’s a similarity to your ears it’s definitely not intentional. Perhaps we’re both playing a sort of minor sounding tuning but I don’t know. “No Spring Chicken” is D-A-D-F-A-D and I looked up his song just now and it’s open G (D-G-D-G-B-D) Having not listened to him in years and not knowing what that song sounds like I’m going to go with no on that one (laughs). Though I am impressed that you can summon up Fahey songs in your mind like that. “The Red Pony” (from Fahey’s God, Time And Causality LP on Shanachie, 1989) and “I’m A Poor Boy A Long Ways From Home” (from his _Blind Joe Death LP on Takoma, 1959), are the only songs I can hear in my head if I think about them. Probably because they’re the only songs of his I learned when I first started playing. I played “Red Pony” like a hundred times when I was 23 after I figured it out and I’ll probably never forget how to play it!
JB: ”Good Directions” features soft percussion and what sounds like pedal steel. How did this track come together, and what role do you feel these elements play in creating its hazy, dreamy atmosphere?
DGA: That song came together like too many of my other songs as an improvisation with my old roommate and best buds Andrew Bones and Bo Halford. Andrew had a vibraphone set up in his bedroom for awhile and I made this off kilter drum loop that we played to. He was bowing the vibes which gives that pedal steel sound you’re hearing and Bo was playing melodica. I was droning out on 12-string and it just came together naturally. Didn’t sound too bad for just one $20 mic in the middle of his bedroom if you ask me.
JB: Agreed! The pedal steel is heavily featured, often processed in unexpected ways, like resembling a cello and oboe on “Unanchored” that you mentioned earlier. To me it is one of the most expressive instruments out there. What draws you to the pedal steel, and what possibilities does processing it offer in your compositions?
DGA: It’s such a hard instrument to play and I’ve been dabbling with it since 2010. I have a project called Talk West which is mostly pedal steel and I’ve been putting out music on various tape labels since 2010 using that instrument. The loop pedal used to be my main form of processing but I’ve been trying to get away from that in the last 5 years or so. My brother (Jesse Aycock), is a great steel player and this town (Tulsa) has a few really great pedal steel players. There’s a young kid here by the name of Muskrat Jones who has all the country chops and is already playing with some big country artists. He lives like 400 feet from me and we keep talking about getting together but we’re both busy all the time so it hasn’t happened yet. I definitely want a lesson from him though!
JB: Gary Peters’ contribution on “Light Peeking Through” is noted for taking “some of the twee out of the song.” Could you elaborate on this collaboration and the specific direction you were aiming for with that track?
DGA: I actually liked the twee. I always like the twee. He and I had been working on that duo record together (The Different Same), and also I was working on remixing his solo record that came out on Scissor Tail at the time (Beginnings: Collected Pedal Steel Works, 2023), so I sent him a bunch of tracks and just said if any of these move you to record on top of them feel free and that was one he liked. He added some more dissonance and complex chording to the song that I liked in some places and took some out as well because of all the songs I sent him that was one that I was pretty happy with the sound already but he added these really interesting chords at the end of a couple sections that really filled out the song. He played mostly the low end on that song.
JB: The final track, “No New Summers,” was apparently cut in one take. What led to this approach, and how does its reverb-heavy soundscape tie into the album’s central theme?
DGA: I don’t know really, my mind really wandered while playing that. It’s not a complicated song or anything but it creates a feeling that I like.
JB: Byron Coley calls the music “nothing short of a goddamn trip.” What do you hope listeners experience when they engage with No New Summers?
DGA: I always just want to make music that people don’t have to think about too much. I hope it makes someones mind wander or helps them turn off their brain for a while. If it makes you feel something that’s a bonus.
Photo courtesy of Scissor Tail
JB: No New Summers is a record that slowly reveals itself with repeated listens. What layers or nuances do you hope listeners will discover with repeated listens?
DGA: Hmm, that’s a good question. I don’t really know how to answer that. I can’t think far ahead. I do love when people catch the nuances since a lot of my music is just nuance. That’s probably not a good thing to admit since I’m not a virtuoso on any instrument. But I am patient and I do listen well and I do know what I want to hear and can usually accomplish making the sounds I want to hear. So there’s hopefully a purity in future listeners knowing that.
JB: Ultimately, what do you feel No New Summers says about your evolution as an artist and your perspective on the current state of instrumental guitar music?
DGA: I like making all kinds of music for fun. I maybe felt like I had a little more to prove when I made Church of Level Track (Scissor Tail, 2016), but after that record and even all the stuff I’ve made under Talk West, The Doldrums, Angel Food, Youth Worship, etc. that came before, during and after that album, I just want to make what comes out in the moment and if it sounds good to my ears than I don’t overthink it much. Music in my opinion isn’t meant to be nitpicked until all the spirit, for lack of a better word, is sucked out of it. I’ve never recorded a single song of my own music in a studio. The closest I came was recording that duo album with my friend Joshua Massad while he was basically storing his equipment during a lull in ownership of the famous Church Studio here in Tulsa. We used the main recording room but still just threw two cheap mics up in the middle of the room and improvised for hours.
JB: How has your inclusion on the Imaginational Anthem compilations shaped your identity as a guitarist?
DGA: Those comps were a big deal to me when I was in my 20’s. I discovered a lot of artists from those records and would be lying if I said it wasn’t validating at the time to be included. The one I was on had the weakest art though. They went all out on the other volumes – not to be a hater but see for yourself (laughs).
JB: While you’re clearly a skilled guitarist, you have introduced other sounds like double bass and “harder-to-source sonorities” in “No Spring Chicken.” How do you see the guitar’s role in relation to these other sonic elements on the album?
DGA: I’m not a purest when it comes to adding other instruments and sounds to mostly guitar centered music. How else are you gonna separate it from all the other stuff in the genre that sounds like everything else? I’m all for adding whatever I want that will create more of an atmosphere. I don’t need to just be all guitar chops. That gets old. There’s already plenty of new guitarists trying to live up to Jack Rose and Fahey, etc. It’s been done to death. The whole “American Primitive” genre is tired. The boundaries for the genre are so small that barely branching out at all sets you apart. If fingerstyle guitar didn’t have such a cheesy connotation I’d say we all stop using the AP label and just call it fingerstyle or solo guitar music. I understand the use of the label so I don’t get mad when people put me in that category. It has a soft spot in my heart forever.
JB: The album cover, with cowboy boots and a skateboard stance, is seen as representing a mourning and celebration of lost childhood abandon. Can you elaborate on this visual and how it connects to the themes of No New Summers?
DGA: Yeah, I feel like it just perfectly sums up childhood in Oklahoma. I’ve seen kids skating in cowboy boots many times. I skateboarded for like 20 years so I also just wanted to pay my respects to skateboarding and how it made me who I am. My summers were spent skateboarding 10 hours a day for my entire childhood and into my teens.
For more information and to have a listen, please visit Feeding Tube Records (U.S.) or Worried Songs (UK). For the more curious, wander over to Scissor Tail.
