Ryley Walker and Cian Nugent

Ryley Walker is an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Chicago whose music and evolution as an artist have proven mercurial. After spending a few years cutting his teeth on the city's indie and experimental music scenes, he began giving solo live performances on acoustic guitar, drawing the inevitable comparisons to his peers, from William Tyler and Glenn Jones to British Isles guitarists ranging from Bert Jansch and John Renbourn to Davy Graham and Martin Carthy. For his part, Walker proved delightfully unpredictable, shapeshifting styles from blues and folk to pop and experimental sounds.

Cian Nugent is a guitar player and composer from Dublin, Ireland who combines personal passions, such as suburban/coastal blues, traditional musics, late 1960s & '70s singer-songwriters, jazz ambitions, 20th century composition and the Takoma school into a deeply personal style. His music boasts an orchestrated and fully instrumented sound that is playful and eerie at the same time.