Portland-based guitarist Marisa Anderson and alt-country singer/songwriter William Tyler have teamed up to officially join the Thrill Jockey record label as a musical duo. The news comes as the two artists announce that plans they will be releasing a new album together, which is set for release in 2021.
Additionally, Thrill Jockey announced today the new pair will be debuting their collaborative project at this year’s Big Ears Music Festival on Friday, November 20 at 8 p.m. EST. In addition to performing as a duo, both Anderson and Tyler will perform solo sets and be accompanied by famed guitarist Yasmin Williams. Additionally, the duo will debut their new album on a festival-hosted stream sometime next year.
Earlier this year, Anderson released The Quickening, her widely-acclaimed collaborative album with drummer Jim White (of The Dirty Three, Xylouris White). That record was released by Thrill Jockey in translucent green vinyl, CD and MP3 formats and received much praise from critics. Pitchfork recently hailed her as “One of the best emotional mediums in the field of solo guitar,” while Folk Radio UK claimed she was “One of America’s most interesting and talented guitar players and composers.”
Tyler has also been plenty busy as of late, releasing the soundtrack album Music from First Cow earlier this year, which provided the score for Kelly Reichardt’s acclaimed film First Cow. Tyler wrote and performed every song on the eight-track LP, which features no lyrics save for a few lines of dialogue from the film interspersed throughout. Most recently, the folk-indie-country rocker and Nashville native released a new seven-track EP entitled New Vanitas.
First Cow marked the multi-talented musician’s fifth full-length studio LP after Behold the Spirit (2010), Impossible Truth (2013), Modern Country (2016) and Goes West (2019). All his records have been widely praised by critics with Rolling Stone naming Modern Country as “One of the best country albums of 2016.”