The idea of a “bedroom” album has always fascinated me. It's much too easy to associate the genre and sound with the melodic lullabies and folkloric feel of the mysterious childhood sanctuaries we once all inhabited. In reality, for twenty and thirty-somethings, bedrooms exist as entirely different entities — ones that harbor both adolescent desires and the sublime darkness of sleep, and serve to block out the harsh realities of the 'real world' that linger just beyond the door. RxRy, with his elusive persona and sound, produces tracks full of the same mystery and apprehension that inhabit our bedrooms, and ends up making music truly worthy of the “bedroom” tag.
Like dubstep visionary Burial before him, RxRy creates music under the veil of anonymity, and with anonymity comes speculation, and, inevitably, a heightened importance placed on moniker rather than an artist's live performance or public image. In turn, whether intentionally or not, this somewhat arbitrary namesake comes to be the face of the musician, and shapes the public's perception of both man and music. Where Burial's songs come off as appropriately distant and macabre, RxRy (Rx [drugs / prescription / also: rex = king], Ry [ray = concentrated vibrations extending outward from a single point ] - as he clarifies in his blog) conjures a completely alien ambient environment; one that's able to simultaneously induce sedation and provoke a cascade of thoughts and ideas. On VAEIOUWLS, his second LP of 2010, RxRy showcases this penchant for sonic creativity across ten sprawling tracks.
The songs themselves do well to characterize sleep-- in all of its glorious and devious forms-- as well as the alternating poles of mania and depression that can stem from pent up in a room for hours on end. The album's first three songs glide together effortlessly, with ethereal keyboards traveling just beneath the surface of a bed of fuzz and delayed claps and clacks, just like the hazy, semi-conscious time that precedes a night's sleep. Then, as if instantly slipping into a mentally taxing dream, “EIIOA (flint rasp export defect),” begins frantically with a bouncing IDM beat that's built upon by a flurry of sharp samples and a quick paced, yet unpredictable synth line. The following track, “AAIEI (alpha reply dagger signal),” and its down-tempo feel plays like a necessary relaxant amongst the unpredictable landscape of the former.
The album continues to weave its way through murky waters as an ever-expanding mold of tape hiss and bass synths ebb and flow in RxRy's solitary world. On “IIOYI (strategy pulse feed loop),” easily the most accessible and fully formed song on VAEIOUWLS, RxRy uses laser-gun keyboard snaps to contrast the dark melodic underbelly we've come to recognize as his calling card. Like a dream, listening to this album can seem to take hours, yet it manages to capture and deceive, clocking in at just under forty minutes. Overall, this LP is certainly an interesting piece of work from a producer who should most definitely continue to experiment and release music, but it's also one that fails to make a lasting impact, simply due to its innate ability to numb and hypnotize.
[RxRy Myspace]
[Download VAEIOUWLS for free]
wow, this is a strong piece of writing. I LOVE it!
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