Kelly Doyle has long been an instrumental figure within the Texas music scene, lending his guitar-playing expertise to projects including Khruangbin, Phosphorescent, and solo material from The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn over the years. Yet his new album Thieves sees him stepping out on his own with a collection of instrumental jazz experiments backed by bass, percussion, and saxophone. Released last Friday, the full-band collection sees Doyle exploring more ambient and electronic lanes, as well.
Despite the group dynamic of the record, Doyle recorded a “Neighborhoods” session for us all alone (well, he does enlist the aid of his canine companion) in the West Texas sprawl somewhere between Marfa and Alpine. “I chose both of these to play solo first just to see how they would sound with no one to help prop me up,” he shares, referring to the album cuts “Cold Open” and “Big Fish.” “I also wanted to play straight into the amp with no effects to keep it bare, stripped-down—kind of like the terrain here. To me, ‘Cold Open’ is a desert song. Even if we don’t hear any obvious Morricone-isms. That’s how I hear it. ‘Big Fish’ is the opposite. It’s a lost-at-sea song, but when I started playing it solo like this it had a whole new mood that tied it closer to ‘Cold Open.’”
Check out the performance below, and stream Thieves here.
