"I am a windows down, volume up, washboard road, pedal steel junkie. But it's not honky tonk emanating from my crackling speakers, rather something strange and lovely. Somehow, this twangy table 'n'strings has reincarnated into the new deity of ambient music. Some are hailing this moment as the birth of "ambient country" (particularly a podcasting gentleman by the name of Bob Holmes) and just as many"
"I say this is a music that is made for me, but really I think it's made for the rocks, for the wide open vistas, for mineral landscapes untainted by our horridness. If you could only drive a few hours with me, I would insist we listen to Barry Walker Jr.'s album Diaspora Urkontinent in its entirety. The work is undoubtedly geological, charting the birth of our planet from its earliest days."
Ambient country melds twangy pedal steel with ambient textures to create immersive soundscapes suited to long, dusty road drives and solitary desert work. The music foregrounds wide open vistas, mineral landscapes, and geological time, evoking planetary formation and the emergence of life. Pedal steel serves as a steady copilot across washboard roads and lonely horizons, providing both melancholy and consolation. Listeners and some commentators label the moment "ambient country," while many musicians resist narrow genre boxes. Albums such as Diaspora Urkontinent explicitly map geological themes, reinforcing the music's contemplative, earthbound sensibility.
Read at Portland Mercury
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