'Our heads are blown. How did this NY guitarist become a cosmic-psych visionary?' Mojo wondered back in September as we awaited the release of Steve Gunn's latest full-length release, Way Out Weather.

With a career spanning nearly 15 years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo and ensemble recordings. His astounding solo albums, as well as his work with GHQ and longtime collaborating drummer John Truscinski, represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven, forward music. A voracious schedule of international performances has cultivated a fervent fanbase for Gunn's music throughout the world. These days you can find him playing with his band as well as sometimes serving as guitarist in fellow Philadelphia-bred troubadour Kurt Vile's band the Violators.

2014 was something of a landmark year, however: European tours opening for close friends and collaborators The War On Drugs and Kurt Vile & The Violators, combined with his strongest solo record to date, has helped Steve find a new audience. Huge praise across the board for Way Out Weather followed – the records featured predominantly in Uncut, Mojo, Pitchfork, The Wire, Rough Trade and Magnet's end of year round-ups, with Leeds record store Jumbo suggesting it was the pick of the year: 'Hazily psychedelic songs that recall Tim Buckley, Spiritualized and JJ Cale alongside American folk roots, and especially country-rock tendencies. Highly recommended.'

Mining the catalogs of Basho, Bull, Chapman and Sharrock, among other titans of stringed-things and record-session royalty, Steve has steadily processed these inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Friendships and collaborations with Jack Rose, Tom Carter, Meg Baird, Mike Cooper and Michael Chapman coloured the disciplined evolution of the discursive, deconstructed blues sound, at once transcendent and methodical, that is now Gunn's signature. Close listening reveals the influence of Delta and Piedmont country blues, ecstatic free jazz, and psych, as well as Gnawa and Carnatic music, on the continually unfolding compositions.

Steve has been highly prolific over recent years, gaining confidence as a singer as well as displaying immense guitar prowess. Collaborative records with Mike Cooper and Hiss Golden Messenger preceded 2013's Time Off (Paradise of Bachelors), his first album as leader of a trio including longtime friends John Truscinski on drums and Justin Tripp on bass, and a record on which Steve's compelling singing features more prominently than ever before. The follow-up, Way Out Weather, has just been released to rave reviews. A heady and elliptical travelogue, Way Out Weather demonstrates a radical widescreen evolution, featuring a larger band and lighting out for lusher, more expansive, and impressionistic territories than Time Off. This is the virtuosic guitarist and songwriter's career-defining statement to date, a self-assured masterpiece.

'Former Kurt Vile compadre completes full transformation into majestic American singer-songwriter' – Mojo, 5/5

Tour support comes from Mary Lattimore & Jeff Zeigler. Mary is a harpist who has played and recorded with Kurt Vile, Thurston Moore, Sharon Van Etten, Meg Baird, Jarvis Cocker, Wrekmeister Harmonies and Steve Gunn, while Jeff is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer for the likes of like The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile andPurling Hiss. They have just released their new record Slant of Light on Thrill Jockey.