Austin guitarist Eric Johnson returns with a pair of new albums and a Stateside show

A consummate musician who’d earned a reputation as one of the world’s best guitar players even before his 1986 solo debut, “Tones,” Eric Johnson is known for his attention to detail on records with pristine arrangements and clean, clear sound. So it’s intriguing to hear him talk about a fresh approach he took with his two new albums, “The Book of Making” and “Yesterday Meets Today.”

Set for simultaneous release July 29 on Los Angeles indie label Blue Elan, the pair of records grew from an archival deep-dig Johnson undertook during the pandemic. “I went to the tape closet and just started pulling out stuff,” he says. “I found one thing after another after another after another.”

He ended up with more than 20 potential tunes, which he eventually whittled to about a dozen. Along the way, he got inspired to write some new material. Of the 18 tracks (nine on each album), “seven of those are new pieces I recorded, and the other 11 are old pieces that either were all finished, partially finished or barely started — just all over the map,” he says. There’s also an outtakes record of seven additional cuts that’s available to those who buy both albums.

More Austin records:Black Pumas' Adrian Quesada talks about his new solo album 'Boleros Psicodélicos'

But the key to making it all work, he says, was a willingness to ease up on the reins. “I tried to let go a little bit,” he explains, adding that “I realized that it’s really OK. It might have a couple of burps in it, but who cares?

“I think if you get too close to stuff and too mental about it, you're not really seeing the big picture. You can end up making a decent record that way, but I think it's better to kind of back up. That's been kind of a life lesson for me; just because you have subscribed to this way of making music for many years doesn't mean it's the most ideal.”

For Johnson, it meant unlearning lessons that had been ingrained in his work habits for decades. “To be honest, it's been a real cathartic realization for me," he says. "I think that mental, really hard-working thing served me well to learn how to play guitar. … But if you just verbatim take that same process into creating music, it might not be as sublime as if you then say, 'OK, maybe tweak that process for making music,' you know?”

Two tracks on “The Book of Making” resulted from writing collaborations with Austin musicians. Singer-songwriter Arielle penned the lyrics for “To Be Alive” and takes the lead vocal on the recorded version, while “Another One Like You” is a co-write with Christopher Cross.

More:Our 2021 interview with Grammy-winning Austin musician Christopher Cross

“That was a song Chris and I wrote many, many years ago,” Johnson says. “It's one of the few songs on the record that I didn't do anything to but remix; there was no reworking the song, it’s just as it was in its entirety. Chris wrote the lyrics to that song, as well.”

Johnson will be the special guest of Austin singer-songwriter Darden Smith on Thursday at Stateside at the Paramount for Smith’s music-and-conversation series, “Who Said You Could Do That” (8 p.m., $30).

“That's going to be the first actual public thing I've done in over two years. I’ve got to get back in and get my feet wet again,” he says with a smile. “It’ll be an interview, and then I'll play a short acoustic set — pretty much all new acoustic music that I've written in the last few months.”

Here’s the video for “Move on Over,” the opening track of the “Yesterday Meets Today” album.

More new Austin music

Here’s a look at other local records out this month.

…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, 'XI: Bleed Here Now'

Conrad Keely and Jason Reece’s noise-rock band was poised to celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2020 with a big tour to support “X: The Godless Void and Other Stories,” the 10th album of their band commonly abbreviated as Trail of Dead. Everything ground to a halt when the pandemic arrived a few weeks into the tour, so they regrouped in Austin and eventually returned to the studio.

The result, “XI: Bleed Here Now,” is perhaps the band’s most ambitious release to date, an 80-minute epic with 22 tracks delivered in quadrophonic sound. Keely and Reece’s supporting cast has mutated many times over the years, but bassist Alec Padron, guitarist/drummer Ben Redman and keyboardist A.J. Vincent all return from the “Godless Void” album/tour, along with newly added guitarist John Dowey.

More Austin records:Los Angeles transplant John Doe talks about his new album "Fables in a Foreign Land"

The cast also included a couple of notable guest singers: Spoon’s Britt Daniel on “Growing Divide” and indie artist Amanda Palmer on “Millennium Actress.” Also contributing were Austin’s renowned Tosca String Quartet, singer Sydney Simpson, and guitarist/drummer Yayo Sanchez, aka the “KISS Guy” who impressed Dave Grohl with a cameo at a 2018 Foo Fighters show in Austin.

The music is all over the map, from hard-edged rock ragers to more delicate pop constructions to cavalcades of chaotic noise. Keely, who wrote an illuminating essay to accompany press materials sent out with the album — he’s a well-read fellow who sprinkles his prose with words such as “noumena,” “etiolated” and “borboygmus” — concluded by offering a Trail of Dead mission statement of sorts: “Art has a role to play in the upcoming decade(s): it needs to point humanity toward solutions.”

Out July 15.

Here’s the video for “Penny Candle”:

Ray Prim, 'Essential'

One of Austin’s most prolific musicians, self-described "singer-soulwriter" Prim has released more than a dozen albums and EPs over the past decade. They’ve run the gamut from proper studio records to live sets to covers collections. “Essential” isn’t, as its title suggests, a best-of collection, but rather a baker’s dozen of new songs that capture his eclectic approach in mixing folk, funk, soul, pop, jazz and more.

At heart, Prim may be first and foremost a bandleader. Though he writes the songs, he’s often fine with having others sing them; on “Essential,” highlights include “Emptied Out,” with rising star Erica Michelle on lead vocals, and “Someday,” which features his longtime collaborator Mexican Chocolate out front.

More:Our 2017 interview with Ray Prim

Prim’s sound also relies heavily on lush arrangements fleshed out here by more than a dozen musicians, including string players Christina Steele, Kimberly Zielnicki, Cait Coughlan and Courtney Castaneda; backing vocalists Noëlle Hampton (Belle Sounds) and Ady Hernandez (80H); and guitarist Roger Blevins Jr. of Mingo Fishtrap.Out July 22. Release show July 22 at 04 Center.

Here’s the video for “Fake It Till You Make It”:

Fastball, 'The Deep End'

Four of these 10 songs came out earlier this year on the EP “Soundtrack,” most notably the opening volley of Miles Zuniga’s “Soundtrack” and Tony Scalzo’s “Electric Cool Aide,” both of which find the band looking back at the paths that led them to where they are today. Los Lobos member Steve Berlin, who produced the group’s exemplary 2019 album, “The Help Machine,” returns here, helping to sharpen the group’s natural pop instincts to a fine point.

The six new tracks are a grab-bag of sorts in terms of style and subject matter, but all of them are good. “Growing Growing Gone,” about Austin’s changes across the decades, first surfaced last summer as part of producer Bruce Robison’s “Next Waltz” video series, with Kevin Russell of Shinyribs singing lead; this time, Scalzo handles the lead vocal. Zuniga’s “Andrea,” a song he’s played at his Sunday-night Saxon Pub shows with the Resentments, is an unrequited-love song with a clever twist in the final verse. Scalzo’s poppy “I Only Remember the Good” and Zuniga’s groove-driven “Real Good Problem to Have” play their respective songwriting strengths, while drummer Joey Shuffield provides a rock-solid rhythmic foundation throughout.

Out July 1.

Here’s the track “Seat at the Table”:

Madam Radar, 'Speaks'

Originally known as the Texas KGB — an acronym for Kelly Green Band — this quartet changed its name to Madam Radar three years ago, perhaps partly to acknowledge that lead guitarist Green is just one of three singer-songwriters in the group. Her husband, rhythm guitarist Jace Cadle, sings several songs here, and her brother, drummer/saxophonist Kody Lee, also contributes to the songwriting. Lee’s girlfriend, bassist Violet Lea, rounds out the lineup.

“Speaks,” the band’s fourth album, is its second since the name change and also the second to be recorded with producer Gordy Quist (from Band of Heathens) at the Finishing School, which Quist has run since the 2017 death of founder George Reiff. Its 10 Americana-leaning songs mix old-school rock & roll with accents of blues, country, folk and more. Cadle’s easygoing, twang-heavy vocals contrast with Green’s more pop-oriented powerhouse delivery, with Lee’s sax solos further enlivening the arrangements.

More Austin music:Our review of Lyle Lovett's first new album in a decade

Highlights include Cadle’s soulful “Hands,” the album’s first single, with all four members singing in the chorus; the sweet ballad “That Love Song,” which puts Lea's emotional singing in the spotlight; and a closing cover of Golden Earring’s 1973 cult classic “Radar Love” that allows the group to cut loose with the tightly focused energy that helps take their live shows to another level. (Madam Radar was the first local act to perform at Austin’s new Moody Center arena when they opened for Bon Jovi in April.)

Out July 29. Release show July 30 at 04 Center.

Here’s the band’s recent NPR Tiny Desk contest submission for “Hands”:

Nick Pagliari, 'Hard Lessons' EP

Originally from Tennessee, where he played music in Nashville for more than a decade after growing up in Memphis, Pagliari came to Austin for a job in the medical field. But he’s still writing and singing Americana material with easygoing melodies and keen lyrical insights, as demonstrated by these six original tunes. The supporting cast includes co-producer Jon Estes, guitarist Sadler Vaden (of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band) and drummer Jamie Dick (known for his work with Rhiannon Giddens and Milk Carton Kids).

Out July 22. Playing Wednesdays in July at Geraldine’s.

Here’s the title track:

Thor Harris, 'Doom Dub II'

The longtime Austin drummer and music experimentalist spent some of his pandemic down-time diving down a rabbit hole of reggae/electronica-inspired dub music. These nine tracks – most of which are titled, “Day 19 of Quarantine,” “Day 62 of Quarantine” and so on – feature a broad range of local, national and international collaborators. He’s releasing the album, which he calls “my humble homage to the original practitioners of the form,” on cassette, with an accompanying zine.

Out July 22.

Here’s the track “Day 447 of Quarantine,” featuring Zola Jesus, Dorian Wood and Craig Ross:

Alex Dupree, 'Thieves'

Veteran of the early-21st-century Austin outfits Trapdoor Band, Idyl and Zookeeper, singer-songwriter Dupree relocated to California to study and teach at UC Irvine but now splits his time between Austin, Alpine and Los Angeles. “Thieves,” on local label Keeled Scales, follows his 2017 solo debut, “You Winsome, You Lonesome,” and features contributions from Austin indie band Knife in the Water’s Aisha Burns and Bill McCullough, among others.

Out July 15. Release show July 14 at Mohawk.

Here’s the video for the track “Fake Diamonds, False Powers”:

Coming soon

AUG. 2: Deezie Brown, “5th Wheel Fairytale”

AUG. 5: Buenos Diaz, “Cocaine Queen”

AUG. 12: Reid Bros., “Southern Spheres”

SEPT. 2: Lloyd Maines, “Eagle Number 65”

SEPT. 9: The Deer, “The Beautiful Undead”

SEPT. 9: Jonathan Terrell, “A Couple 2, 3…” EP

SEPT. 17: Andrea Magee, “Belfast Girl”

SEPT. 23: Sunny Sweeney, “Married Alone”

OCT. 7: Dayglow, “People in Motion”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Guitarist Eric Johnson issues 2 new albums, plus more new Austin music