Even for those lucky enough to avoid LinkedIn, despite a pandemic encouraging the reclaiming of personal connections, there’s a palpable sense of necessity to work ‘round the clock to claw ourselves out of a cost of living crisis. With less time (and even less money) to enjoy lives with loved ones, loneliness is a pervading factor no matter how it comes about. The question of whether you thrive or flounder with too many isolated thoughts on your hands is becoming an even more universal one, duly pondered as a main theme for debutant Rory Ryan.
When You’re Alone, How Does It Feel? is an album title that mimics Billie Eilish, more grounded in the strangeness of real-life than trying to decipher our nightmares and dreams. Galway based singer-songwriter Ryan ponders his life after a stint as a chef, losing personal friends to climes further afield, and trying to understand his connections to past relationships and indeed the untamed landscape of his native land. An uncanny version of rural Ireland walks plays a looming part in this debut record, reflected in its surf ‘n’ turf green / blue Rothko image distorted into Microsoft Word Art gradients, and Ryan’s funnelling of psychedelia into synth-pop to distort “things being big and colourful”.
Armed with a laptop and chops across many instruments, Ryan’s sound bursts out of his rented room recording and self-release, blooming so much that its more melancholic musings are masked somewhat. The acoustic guitar shimmers, plodding drums and ominous vocal cadences of single In The Past have certain MGMT qualities, while Ryan’s concise ear for encapsulating verse-chorus-bridge classicisms á la Carole King is evident to stop the instrumentals from escaping into purely atmospheric moods. Tying everything together are piano-led orchestral moments Long Gone and It’s Not Always Bad, both motifs that switch between pessimism and optimism, which strips back to the more vulnerable Two Sides Of The Same Coin, reflecting on a break up and its knock-on effects for a confusing mind-stew.
Restlessness continues as a theme first introduced in breakout single Keeping My Mind Quiet, a remarkably succinct epic regarding personal grow through spacey synth licks that also blissfully tinkle over Together—a ‘woulda, shoulda, coulda’ love song that culminates each of his instrument-mastery in a full blown chorus. The idea that Ryan feels “I’m still a stranger” at the end of In The Future brims with sadness, as does the unhelpfulness of ruminating on I Know That It’s Over: “my brain’s just too busy, with too much to be thinking over, thinking over…”, taking certainty straight back to uncertainty in a final “I think it’s over”. Rather than showcasing this as a gloomy reflection, the production injects the theatrical pomp of the latest Father John Misty record (an artist mastering engineer Philip Shaw Bova has worked with) to make lovesickness’ melodramatic effect all the more palpable. A similar effect sees How I’ve Come Undone’supbeat and staccato Strokes-like lead lines mimic wiry, scattershot thoughts—“my head feels like it’s got way too much blood”—in a power-pop caffeinated hit.
Artists that lean heavily into mind murk, dream-pop and psychedelia have a danger to rely on ‘the vibes’ as their main effect. But Rory Ryan reflects the familiar themes of his thought processes—isolation and disconnection—through his refrains as much as in his well-connected sonic compositions to make them hit home that much more pointedly. Certainly the current world mood is captured here in both, perhaps propelling this multi-skilled writer beyond the small bedroom currently serving as the crawl space for his thoughts-to-paper style of songcraft.
For fans of: MGMT, Chromatics, Grizzly Bear
‘When You’re Alone, How Does It Feel?’ by Rory Ryan is released on 22nd March.
Words by Elliot Burr
