Peter Walker 'Landed' album

“Understated and raw, his songs are laid-back,” observed a reviewer for MilesOfMusic.com...

... , “but Walker adds an edge of desperation in a breathy rasp that is similar to E of The Eels or fellow Bay Area band The Mother Hips.” Still, the writer also called Landed “the perfect soundtrack for a very lazy Sunday afternoon.” This owes not only to Walker’s gift for under-the-skin melodies but to acclaimed producers Joe Chiccarelli and Tony Hoffer and the musicians who helped craft this musical photo album: guitarist-keyboardist Jay Bennett from Wilco, drummer Joey Waronker (R.E.M.) and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Beck); Walker sang and played guitar, bass, keyboards and percussion.

Landed is a handful of Polaroids, still drying, fanned out to reveal a cast of shadowy characters, some real, some imagined, some Walker, some not. Most long for solid footing atop ever-shifting ground. They seek connection but remain separated – by distance, by drugs, by dysfunction.

Growing up in Boston and later, the Bay Area, Walker began his music career on piano. Influenced early on by artists as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Descendants and Dead Kennedys, he later fell under the sway of Neil Young, who inspired him to pick up the guitar.

Walker felt a tremendous sense of belonging when he joined his first band in high school, playing rhythm guitar and singing backup. He wrote songs for that outfit and subsequent, college bands – he studied art at the University Of Colorado at Boulder – then switched to lead guitar. Eventually, he gained enough confidence to express himself fully and stepped out in front.

Upon graduation, Walker moved to San Francisco and devoted himself to music full time. After a period spent producing demos, he found himself collaborating with Chiccarelli (Frank Zappa, U2, Café Tacuba) and Hoffer, celebrated producer of The Thrills, Beck and Air, who added grit to the still-coalescing album.

Walker notes that onstage, the songs are rougher than they appear on Landed,” explaining: “The record is very tight; live, there’s a lot of openness. And the guitar solos are longer and more … Well, someone who saw the show paid us the ultimate compliment recently by saying we reminded them of Crazy Horse.”

Asked why he called the record Landed, he alludes to his role as storyteller: “Thinking about these characters, traveling through these experiences, the different themes – addiction and what it means to not be grounded in your life, loneliness, the nature of beauty … ‘Landed’ means that at this moment, when you’re listening to the record, I’m back from the trip; I’ve landed. I’ve seen all this on my travels, and now it’s time to show you what I’ve seen.”

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Peter Walker - Landed