Despite having immense success separately in projects like Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket, guitarists Tyler Ramsey and Carl Broemel’s most harmonious music comes when they’re playing together. Bringing layered harmonies and complimentary riffs, the duo play off one another with effortless precision, as you can see here in this video session with I Know We Should.
Recorded at Nashville’s East Iris Studios last month during AMERICANAFEST, this three-song set begins with two songs from Celestun, their first collaborative album following years of touring together and tossing the idea around. First up is the Broemel-led “Nevermind,” an apathetic and introspective look at stepping back from the world’s doom and gloom news cycle to decipher how he can best bring positivity to your corner of it. Following “Nevermind,” Broemel and Ramsey spoke about their individual influences ranging from John Fahey to Leo Kottke, Mississippi John Hurt, Neil Young and Clarence White, and how their differing play styles mesh together, with Broemel remarking that playing with Ramsey gives him a much needed change of pace from his other musical endeavors.
“We’ve spent so much time playing very loud rock n’roll music with lots of other musicians, and sometimes you get lost in the technology and people and everything,” explains Broemel. “We both started out on a guitar in our rooms, so for me this is like zeroing back in and playing again.”
From there the duo jumped into “Flying Things,” a heartfelt number written for his young daughter after reading the children’s book Dream Animals together, before wrapping up their time with IKWS with Ramsey’s (currently) unreleased “New Queen Anne”. The somber yet hopeful ballad that recounts the devastation brought onto his native Asheville and Western North Carolina following Hurricane Helene and the symbolic rebirth that a field of wildflowers can represent. According to Ramsey, storms wiped out a bridge to his family’s property and flooded haying pastures, leaving them to grow full with Queen Anne’s Lace blooms. “It was a reassuring thing to see the beauty that came after that huge tragedy”.
Stay tuned for more from Ramsey, Broemel and IKWS by following along with each at the links below.
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Recorded live at East Iris Studios in Nashville during AMERICANAFEST on September 17, 2026.
00:32 - “Nevermind”
08:38 - “Flying Things”
16:54 - “New Queen Anne”
Audio by Juan M Soria
Video by Brad Wagner
Words by Matt Wickstrom
Tyler Ramsey: https://www.tylerramsey.com/
Carl Broemel: https://www.instagram.com/carlbroemel/
East Iris Studios: https://www.eastirisstudios.com/
AMERICANAFEST: https://americanamusic.org/americanafest/
A/V Production: https://www.iknowweshould.com/