Hayden Pedigo – Letting Go

I thought I may have burned myself out on acoustic guitar records earlier this year, but Hayden Pedigo’s Letting Go proved me wrong. In an interview, he described it as “closer to new age in tone” and perhaps that’s what’s so attractive about it – blending futurism with tradition, welcoming and embracing the new era of Texas musicianship.

It’s a beautiful, contemplative, breathing record. Hayden’s elegant and painterly compositions are augmented by Luke Schneider’s pedal steel and field recordings captured by masterful producer and engineer Andrew Weathers, and swirling synths add a haze of lush dreaminess. Each of the seven dynamic pieces’ guitar parts were tracked one after the other in a single take in a single day before additional textures were overdubbed.

Letting Go reflects Hayden’s process of moving from his hometown of Amarillo to Lubbock, Texas and the ensuing creative paralysis he experienced. At the same time, he had been temporarily estranged from his family (Texas, “super religious family,” family estrangement, the last couple years, I’m sure we can put together why and many of us can relate) and he had to learn to, well, let go. The result? Autumnal, forlorn at times and optimistic at others, always atmospheric and multi-dimensional.

“Carthage” opens with gently whistling winds filling in the silence between his first tentative plucks, before gaining confidence and breaking open into a chiming, droning pattern, with bird song and rain sticks echoing and pulled and stretched to become one with the song. “Some Kind of Shepherd” would seamlessly fit between tracks on William Tyler’s Modern Country, but there’s an edge of darkness, as heard also in “Rained Like Hell”, an anguished and emotive, pedal steel wailing siren-like, a cinematic climax before ultimately collapsing into the gentle acceptance of the title track. The distorted echoes of pedal steel call out in the opening notes of “Letting Go” as if Luke was playin from behind a waterfall before zeroing in. The rest of the album continues the process of making peace, not altogether a smooth transition without pitfalls and minor keys, but making its way there, a homecoming of sorts, or at least the embrace of an adopted home. The use of synthesizers in the culminating track, “I Wasn’t Dreaming,” truly propels the album and listeners to consider what’s to come.

Pedigo’s style is extremely distinct, despite any Fahey comparisons and influence, flowing like a steely river. Letting Go is, to be a bit on the nose, a thorough lifecycle of despair and resolution, each track a singular sonic journey unto its own and holistically one of the most expressive instrumental albums I’ve heard in a long time.

Buy Letting Go on Bandcamp, out tomorrow (9/24) on Mexican Summer.