Tyler Ramsey and MMJ’s Carl Broemel’s debut collab acoustic album out today
TYLER RAMSEY AND MY MORNING JACKET’S CARL BROEMEL’S
DEBUT COLLABORATIVE ACOUSTIC PROJECT, CELESTUN, OUT TODAY
INCLUDING RELEASE DAY FOCUS TRACK “FLYING THINGS” FT. THE SECRET SISTERS
BLENDS BROEMEL’S CLASSICAL SENSIBILITIESAND RAMSEY’S DISTINCTIVE PICKING STYLE
CELESTUN U.S. TOUR KICKS OFF THIS WEEKEND AT 30A SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL IN FLORIDA
Singer-songwriter-guitarists Tyler Ramsey and My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel are thrilled to release Celestun, their debut collaborative acoustic effort, on their own Duo Quest Records via Tone Tree Music. The new project places Ramsey and Broemel’s juxtaposed guitar-playing styles and training front and center to create rustic beauty and atmospheric power.
"The songs unfold with patience and warmth, simple in structure, rich in mood, moving at the pace of a Sunday drive with no urgency and plenty of room to absorb the scenery. Broemel’s classically informed touch pairs beautifully with Ramsey’s nimble fingerstyle approach,” writes Copper (PSAudio). Creative Loafing adds that the album features "shimmering songs that capture a graceful, unhurried Laurel Canyon vibe,” while Blueridge Outdoors describes it as “guitar tranquility."
The pair’s initial objective had been to record an all-instrumental album, but the natural flow of the sessions led the duo to begin incorporating vocal tracks, “Nevermind,” “Sail Away,” and “Flying Things” ft. The Secret Sisters. Over the years, both Ramsey and Broemel had previously worked with The Secret Sisters, a.k.a. GRAMMY® Award-nominated duo Laura Rogers and Lydia Slagle. Broemel contributed pedal steel to their 2010 cover of Johnny Cash’s “Big River” with Jack White, while Ramsey toured and sang harmonies with them on a rendition of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Wasted on the Way” in 2024.
Ramsey takes lead vocals on his heartwarming “Flying Things,” a tender lullaby written for his 11-year-old daughter. “Early in her life, we would read her bedtime stories – we still do – but there was a really sweet and beautifully illustrated book that we found, it was called Dream Animals and it was all about going to sleep and then riding on these magical creatures in your dreams,” he says. “We started doing this thing where we’d say, well, what’s your dream animal – we call them ‘dream protectors’ – what’s your dream protector going to be? And we’d all pick out which animals we were going to be hanging out with in our dreams. It was just kind of a little magical way to say good night.
“One night, she was three or four, and we all said we were going to be birds. I was going to be an owl, she was going to be a seagull, and my wife was going to be a hawk. As I was turning the light off and was getting ready to close the door, my daughter said, ‘We’re all flying things.’ I immediately wrote that down, and I wrote this song for her.”
WATCH OFFICIAL TRACK VISUALIZERS
Though conceived in the most modern way possible, the album has the feel of a lost private stock classic, with songs akin to the work of iconic acoustic guitarists like Clarence White, John Fahey, Michael Hedges, Leo Kottke, Bert Jansch, and John Renbourn.
“I’ve always wanted to make an instrumental album,” says Ramsey. “I enjoy instrumental music as much as I enjoy music with lyrics. It’s just a different path. There are moments in life that call for that kind of thing. I think instrumental music can take you places sometimes that lyrics can’t.”
“Sometimes the guitars write the songs for you,” Broemel says. “Just moving your hands around and letting things happen. It’s hard to describe how to write an instrumental guitar piece. For me, it does seem to kind of come out of the guitar, more than out of my brain.”
Much of the magic of Celestun can be attributed to the very different approaches the two guitarists take to their instruments, with Broemel using fairly standard tuning and Ramsey opting for more alternate tones and pitches. Though dissimilar, their divergent styles prove wonderfully simpatico, allowing them to build complex layers together without getting in the way of each other's playing. In that sense, Celestun encapsulates the duo’s singular camaraderie, which has led to the creation of this predominantly instrumental song cycle, recorded almost entirely on acoustic guitars. Following the album's release, the duo will celebrate with a 26-city tour kicking off on January 16 at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Santa Rosa Beach, FL, and making stops across the country. The full itinerary is below.
TYLER RAMSEY / CARL BROEMEL - “CELUSTUN TOUR”
JANUARY 2026
16-17 - Santa Rosa Beach, FL - 30A Songwriters Festival
18 - Atlanta, GA - Eddie's Attic - SOLD OUT
20 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn
21 - Mobile, AL- Callaghan’s Irish Social Pub - SOLD OUT
22-23 - New Orleans, LA- Folk Alliance International
25 - Denver, CO - Swallow Hill Music
26 - Boulder, CO - eTown Hall
29 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile
30 - Portland, OR - Portland's Folk Festival
31 - San Francisco, CA - The Chapel
FEBRUARY 2026
2 - Felton, CA - Felton Music Hall
4 - Pioneertown, CA - Pappy & Harriet's
6 - Los Angeles, CA - Lodge Room
7 - Ojai, CA - Ojai Deer Lodge
9 - Phoenix, AZ - Musical Instrument Museum
11 - Nashville, TN - The Basement East
12 - Louisville, KY - The Whirling Tiger
13 - Evanston, IL - SPACE
18 - Westerly, RI - The UNITED Theatre
19 - Albany, NY - Lark Hall
20 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios
21 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
22 - Philadelphia, PA - MilkBoy
24 - Vienna, VA - Jammin Java
26 - Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
27-28 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle
Best known of course as guitarist in My Morning Jacket, Louisville, KY’s Carl Broemel has released a series of solo recordings over the past two decades, as well as such collaborative efforts as …Thanks Y’all, a 2023 live album recorded over five shows performed with Athens, GA’s Futurebirds. Meanwhile, Asheville, NC-based singer-songwriter-guitarist Tyler Ramsey has earned praise for his former role as songwriter and lead guitarist in Band of Horses as well as an evolving solo body of work that includes 2024’s acclaimed New Lost Ages, hailed by Americana UK as “a gentle indie-folk gem.”
The two first met when Band of Horses supported My Morning Jacket on tour in 2012. Broemel marveled at Ramsey’s technique, the sound, chord voicings, and deep feelings he would pull out of his guitar. They discussed recording during a pair of well-received 2019 tours together, but were challenged to find times when both were free from other obligations. The stars finally lined up during the pandemic, the compulsory lockdown allowing them to begin exchanging tracks.
“Since we were both at home, we started sending songs back and forth, and the album just kind of built from there,” Broemel says. “Tyler would send me one track of guitar, I sat with it and then wrote a whole other guitar part that just kind of weaved in and out of what he did. We kept doing it and slowly accumulated more and more pieces of music.”
“I sent him a couple of songs that I was messing around with,” Tyler Ramsey says, “and when he sent back his ideas on top of them, it was just magical. Like, exactly what was needed to fill in the spaces that needed to be filled in.”
In 2024, Broemel and Ramsey returned to the project in person at Broemel’s home in Nashville. Though conceived and begun in the most modern way possible, the album has the feel of a lost private stock classic akin to the work of iconic acoustic guitarists like Clarence White, John Fahey, Michael Hedges, Leo Kottke, Bert Jansch, and John Renbourn. Stark yet intricately arranged pieces such as “In The Willows” and “Elizabeth Brown” are rich with a great depth of feeling and artistic invention, expertly encapsulating the two veteran guitarist-songwriters’ mutual admiration and effortless compatibility. Music at its most elemental, with Celestun, Broemel, and Ramsey strip away artifice to unlock and explore deeply personal themes of wanderlust and familial love, of the bonds of friendship and the gradual accumulation of creative ideas.
“We don’t step on each other’s toes,” says Broemel, “we kind of fit together like puzzle pieces. Maybe that sounds grandiose, but that’s how it feels to me when we’re playing. We don’t even have to talk about it.”
“We just mesh together in a way that I can’t even really explain,” says Ramsey. “I feel like there’s some magical connection between our two things, it just makes me smile and satisfies some itch as far as things that I would like to hear on the music that I write. I think he feels the same way about what I do. When I put a part to one of his songs, we both have this feeling like that was exactly what was missing.”
CONNECT WITH TYLER RAMSEY & CARL BROEMEL
CONNECT WITH TYLER RAMSEY
TYLERRAMSEY.COM | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE
CONNECT WITH CARL BROEMEL
FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | YOUTUBE
Photo Credit: Parker J. Pfister
