Impossible Truth was born on tour as William Tyler was reading two books with an odd kinship while on long and lonely Midwestern drives: Barney Hoskyns’ Hotel California and Mike Davis’ The Ecology of Fear. Both center on the promise and psychosis of southern California, albeit from very different angles: Hoskyns tackles the naïve and narcissistic Laurel Canyon scene of the early seventies, while renowned social scientist Davis deals with the history of the destruction of Los Angeles, both in real and imagined disasters. The synchronistic tackling of these tomes inspired Tyler to compose a story rooted in apocalyptic expectation and bittersweet nostalgia. Or as Tyler puts it, this is “my ’70s singer-songwriter record; it just doesn’t have any words.”

Recorded and mixed at Beech House in Nashville and co-produced by Tyler and Mark Nevers, Impossible Truth features guest appearances from Chris Scruggs, Luke Schneider, Roy Agee, and Lambchop compatriot Scott Martin. 2010’s Behold the Spirit, William Tyler’s first album under his own name, was celebrated by Pitchfork as “the most vital, energized album by an American solo guitarist in a decade or more” and established him as a critical favorite, the picker who, according to his friend and tour mate M.C. Taylor from Hiss Golden Messenger, “connects the dots between Sandy Bull, Richard Thompson, Bruce Langhorne, and Reggie Young."

Impossible Truth will challenge your ideas of what an instrumental guitar record can and should be. As Taylor puts it, “William will worry a phrase—some tangled chordal wormhole—until you are certain it’s all that exists. He’ll take you over the stiles, he’ll love you up and down, and then he’ll make you cry for the world and what we’ve done to it. Willy T’s got the vampire blues. And there’s only one like him.”