Zachary Cale has been quietly building intricate worlds with his fingerstyle guitar for years now, but on Love’s Work, his first fully instrumental album, those worlds expand into something more patient and exploratory. Without the anchor of his distinctive vocals, the music moves with a different kind of confidence. The melodies reveal themselves slowly, like watching fog lift off a valley floor. There’s a compositional maturity here that feels earned rather than announced. Working with improvisers Jeremy Gustin and Shahzad Ismaily, Cale’s pieces breathe with spontaneity while maintaining their structural integrity. The violin work from Arun Ramamurthy and Trina Basu adds crucial levity, their harmonized lines catching light against the guitar’s earthier tones. What strikes me most about Love’s Work is how it balances intimacy with openness. These aren’t exercises in technique; they’re melodic narratives that carry emotional weight. The record plays like a series of connected memories, each piece leading naturally into the next, unified by Cale’s ambient synth work and the persistent pull of his open-tuned guitar patterns. It’s music that rewards close listening but never demands it, existing comfortably in both focused attention and peripheral awareness.
Love’s Work is OUT NOW. Zachary Cale can be found via his website HERE.
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What’s your earliest memory of sound having an effect on you, not necessarily music, but any sound that stopped you in your tracks?
It must have been the sounds from my backyard growing up in Louisiana. The humidity there really brought out the insects and wildlife. The wall of sound from the crickets chirping is really something. Then you got bullfrogs. It’s like an orchestra at night!
How did you first start playing guitar? Was there a particular moment when it clicked for you?
I was a pretty typical kid for the early 90s. Got my first guitar at 13. Spent a year abusing it, driving my parents up the wall. After a year of perseverance, my hands began to stretch to reach the chords correctly. My father played guitar, so even before I started playing, I would watch him play as a little kid. There was always music playing in the house, so between that and all the guitars lying around, it seemed inevitable that I would learn.
Once I was able to train my ear, that was the breakthrough. Before that, you’d learn metal riffs from tablature in rock magazines, but once you’re able to learn tunes from listening to records, all gates are open, and you start getting into writing and developing your own style. Starting bands with your buddies, etc. That’s when the obsession started.
Love’s Work is your first instrumental album. What drew you to explore this territory without the anchor of vocals? How did it feel to let the guitar carry all that emotional weight without your distinctive vocals as support?
Part of it was that I had amassed a lot of musical themes that weren’t ideal for vocals. Little riffs and patterns that weave together. Though I should say that even when I write songs with vocals, I primarily do it with an instrument to guide me, it’s rare that I write lyrics first. That approach ensures there will be a strong melody and foundation from the get-go, and sometimes I’ll come up with something that is a bit too ornate for vocals.
If you look back through my catalog, I’ve always interspersed songs with instrumentals. I’ve just always liked that blend. But yeah, fully embracing the instrumental side of my playing on record is something I always wanted to try, and so it felt natural to not sing and let the guitar do the talking. It’s already such a significant part of my sound that it wasn’t a big shift. It’s more the question of does it all hang together well? Is it engaging enough for a full album? I really focused on how the pieces segue together, to make sure there’s an arc to it. I’m still a vinyl guy at heart, so the closing and starting of a side is super important. Sequencing is always key, but I’d say even more so without vocals.
When you’re composing instrumentally, what makes a melody worth pursuing? How do you know when a fragment has potential?
The melody has to be strong and feel good under your hands. Is it fun to play? Is it memorable? Can you sing or hum it? That is very key to great instrumental music. John Fahey is notable for always highlighting the melody over the technique. Playing slow and deliberately rather than fast and flashy. If you have a good melody on a guitar, you should be able to sing it. There’s a lot of instrumental music out there currently, and a lot of it is pleasant, but is it memorable? Even Brian Eno has said there’s a certain richness of tone and movement required for ambient music. It’s not just pretty and ethereal for the sake of it. There has to be a discernible voice.
Working with Jeremy Gustin and Shahzad Ismaily must create a different kind of musical conversation. How does their improvisational approach change the way your compositions breathe?
Those guys are both master improvisers, so it loosens the music considerably. As a musician, it’s easy to get hyper-focused on nailing your parts, but when I play with Shahzad and Jeremy, it’s not about parts as much as it is about the arc of the piece and the emotion required to make it blossom. Shahzad rarely ever plays the same thing twice. He performs each time he does a take like he’s on stage, I think, because he senses a new emotion for each take. That’s a rare thing. Jeremy is highly adaptable and super playful. I can throw anything at him, and he’ll be right there, and on stage, it’s all about eye contact instead of counting out each bar, which is much easier for my untrained musical brain.
The sessions were recorded with just the three of us knocking it out live. I conducted as I was playing, looking through the iso booth window. We hadn’t worked out anything ahead of time. It was all on the fly and usually captured in two takes. I record this way even when I’m doing songs with vocals. There’s a freshness to when the tune is just revealing itself, a danger of falling apart or not getting right, but it’s in the reaching for it where those first impulses hit harder.
And then the violin work from Arun Ramamurthy and Trina Basu brings such buoyancy to these melodies. How do you hear those string conversations developing against your guitar?
Arun and Trina play like one mind! I shared a bill with them and Shane Parish a while back, and that’s where I first heard their music. They have a wonderful album out on the Spinster label. When I saw them play live, I had an epiphany! I was already deep into the sessions with Shahzad and Jeremy, so I was already thinking of what I could do to augment the tunes. They both play violin and harmonize so effortlessly. There’s a drone raga-like influence, classical and jazz in their sound. I thought it was perfect for what I was trying to do.
The album has this intimate yet expansive quality, like music heard through walls or across distance. How do you think about the spaces your music occupies?
Yeah, space and the restraint required to allow space are super important to me, but also space in the sense of atmosphere and setting a scene. I grew up with a lot of post rock music, most of which was instrumental. The Dirty Three, Tortoise, and Jim O’Rourke, especially. That era of music really opened up what rock or indie music could be. The tunes can be more about arrangements, textures, and the voicings of different instruments. After I got into those bands, I discovered Steve Reich. That was a real game-changer. I try to implement those minimalistic ideas into my playing and how I put tunes together.
You’ve described it as “like a soundtrack to an imaginary film.” What kind of scenes were emerging as these pieces developed?
Well, there’s a bit of backstory here. My father passed away when I was just starting to formalize the ideas for the album. That loss informed a lot of the cadence and melody. As I mentioned before, he was a lifelong guitar player himself and is my first influence as a guitar player. So a lot of the imagery I see when I’m playing this music is of scenes where he grew up, which is in the northern reaches of Washington State. A lot of the song titles are site-specific references to places in Skagit Valley. “At Deception Pass”, “Fixing a Fire on Hope Island”, “The Poplars Sway in the Valley”. They don’t just sound cool, they are real places.
Billy Higgins with Sandy Bull is such a specific reference point for that pocket between structure and flight. What is it about that approach that resonates with your own work?
I remember finding that first Sandy Bull record for cheap and being completely blown away by it. After that, I had to find everything he recorded. Upon further exploration, I noticed that the percussionist on those early records is Billy Higgins, who is a celebrated jazz artist in his own right. The dynamic between them is really special. It’s the sound of two worlds colliding. There’s the almost strict classical sensibility that Sandy has paired with the free-flowing groove of Higgins. The records are really interesting to me, as you can’t call it folk or blues or even American Primitive. It’s its own thing. That’s what I try to do with my music. I’m a sponge and ultimately never felt like I fit in one camp. I have the singer-songwriter tag, of course, but there’s a lot of American Primitive in my playing, and I also write a lot of rock-oriented music. I’m deeply inspired by all strains of American music, and I’m just weaving my own tapestry from all those sources.
Now that Love’s Work exists, has it changed how you hear your own songwriting? Do melodies reveal different possibilities when freed from words?
Yeah, I think it has. If anything, it’s opened me up to not overthinking and defining what a song or a piece of music is. You can do both, on the same album, within the same song, even! Melody is king, and what you decide to do with it is up to you.
Sometimes I just don’t feel like singing, or I can’t reach the notes I’m playing on my instrument with my voice. Sometimes lyrics can get in the way of a good melody, or maybe they just don’t fit well. Lyric writing is a whole other animal; it’s really about how it sings and lies over the music. I agonize over getting it just right so the voice feels one with the music rather than tacked on.
What did this project teach you about your own musical voice and the music that lives in those spaces between intention and spontaneity?
In doing this album, I feel a bit more liberated to move between instrumental and song-based music on a whim, embracing thematic music rather than just what’s expected from the “rock” lexicon. Going forward, there will probably be more of that.
Another takeaway is to remember to be playful. Open up, even if there are structures/melodies you’re using. There’s always more room to dance around the main ideas and extrapolate, especially when there are musicians you trust in the room with you.
And lastly, to close as always… What are your favorite sounds in the world?
The sound of rain. The percussive quality is just so beautiful to me. Storms of all kinds, too. I think it’s partly psychological, as there’s equally a feeling of tension and calm when a storm is brewing. It makes me feel pensive in a good way. Waves crashing is pretty nice too. I guess water in general. Not that I’m an astrology nut or anything, but I’m a water sign, so maybe that factors in.
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Great article. From one water sign to another!