Cult guitar hero and singer-songwriter Ryley Walker has signed to boundary-pushing London label AD 93, and released his first new music in five years, the six-minute 'Carrier'. It's a remarkable piece of music, built around a brutally distorted guitar loop, recalling the sonic assault of Low at their Double Negative-era heaviest combined with a Thurston Moore-like knack for combining restless dissonance with head-spinning melody.

Walker's statement on the single is characteristically self-deprecating yet sharp.

“‘Carrier’ is a simple tune. Just digital distortion in PPOOLL/Max/MSP and a pitched-down loop of a failed guitar demo from my phone. Ditched years earlier. Totally broken, but refried and refurbished. 

I chipped away at it in my apartment downtown NYC after closing shifts at my service-industry gig. Clock-out jams. Great period of exhaustion. 

Despite how brutal it sounds, it truly felt like the easier, softer way of making a tune. 

I was thinking of people in my hometown of Rockford, Illinois. Wearing SpongeBob pyjama pants to a funeral-type heads. I imagined them screaming behind the wheel of a salvage-title Honda Civic with a lift kit. They inspire me every day. 

I thought of Loren Connors. Thought of Kevin Drumm. Thought of Caspar Brötzmann. Smoked cigs inside.”