William Tyler and the Impossible Truth and Friends Bring New Perspectives to AmericanaFest

Arriving amid the AmericanaFest festivities at The Blue Room Friday night — which also included sets from The Watson Twins and Peter One — it seemed unlikely David Nance and Mowed Sound would reference either of two late-greats, Gram Parsons or Robbie Robertson; that turned out to be partly true, at least. Nance, who is from Nebraska, did pay tribute to Nashville resident Melanie Safka by soundchecking with a fragment of her 1970 song “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).”  

Nance’s tunes are both carefully conceived and spacious, and they come dressed in licks that allude to blues, soul and rock ’n’ roll. Nance would begin a song with an inside-out guitar lick that James Schroeder would echo, often in harmonies that reminded me of The Allman Brothers, Television and maybe even Robbie Robertson’s biting guitar work with The Band. The songs — Nance says the band is working on a new album that’s tentatively set for release in early 2024 — overran themselves, but every tune had hooks, creative tension and plenty of kinetic energy. 

If Nance & Co. skewed blues, William Tyler and the Impossible Truth pulled off the trick of integrating krautrock rhythms into instrumentals that recall the glory days of the late-1960s Nashville band Area Code 615. Here, Tyler’s group included drummer Brian Kotzur, bassist Jack Lawrence, pedal-steel player Luke Schneider and keyboardist Jo Schornikow. They turned “Area Code 601,” a song that appears on their new live album Secret Stratosphere, into something that might give Area Code 615 member and legendary Nashville session cat Charlie McCoy pause for a second. 

But the song — the performance was augmented by guitarist Yasmin Williams, who played psychedelic-folk licks throughout — fits into the tradition of Nashville instrumental records McCoy pioneered, as Tyler & Co. know. As the set wound down, Tyler said, “There is no way in hell we are Americana, but we snuck in.” Maybe he’s right, but the music spoke for itself.

The Spin

Adeem the Artist, Mya Byrne and More Showcase Country Pride at AmericanaFest

• P.J. Kinzer

Cover Stories

AmericanaFest Preview 2023

• Scene Staff