Press release
Ryan “Hoagie Wesley” Ensley shares music as Sonny Falls, who just released his fourth, self-titled, full-length album. With his new record, the prolific Chicago songwriter polished his usual rough-around-the-edges sound with his longtime collaborator Michael Mac (Mia Joy, Tasha, Tenci) while still giving room for J Mascis-inspired guitar theatrics. Ryan says it’s his favorite album he’s written so far, and part of that might be because he took more time to write — and rewrite — the record during 2020.
Chicago music writer Josh Terry wrote the Sonny Falls bio, summing up the project when saying Ensley writes “rollicking and resonant rock songs that feel like self-contained journeys.” The Chicago Reader interviewed Ryan, aptly calling the project his “rootsy indie-rock group,” with Ryan telling them the fourth album is self-titled since it’s the best document of his vision so far. “I’ll always be trying to bridge the gap between Sonic Youth and Townes Van Zandt […] this is part of the bridge.”
Listen and purchase the album here on Bandcamp.
Ryan also told American Songwriter in 2020 for his double album All That Has Come Apart / Once Did Not Exist (Plastic Miracles, Oceanator’s imprint) that he offers nakedly sparse acoustic songs alongside sprawling 7+ minute epics to give him the freedom to do anything with his new music. Sonny Falls isn’t a total sonic departure, but it’s his most cohesive record yet and his most polished, due to spending more time with it during 2020 when he had, of course, more time to sit on it.
The record was also recently recommended this week a in The FADER and a thoughtful round-up in Rosy Overdrive, with the latter writing “the songs on Sonny Falls don’t sound like anything but Sonny Falls songs, but every song on the album feels stretched and teased out in a new way.” Continuing, “when he wants to pull out one of the all-gas, no-brakes garage-y fuzz rock anthems that have marked his past, Ensley still very much ‘has it’.”
Links to music and social media:
