Richardine Bartee
If experimental producer Ryan Summers wasn’t into horror or science fiction films, I’m unsure what his inspiration may be.
On his ten-track sophomore album—ii—Ryan Summers, the Marshfield, Wisconsin-native producer travels through space and time, that doesn’t feel dense or complicated. The songs from the LP are simple in tune yet, masterfully crafted.
I’m unsure if everyone who reads this will be able to identify what I’m going to convey, but I can hear the brilliance. When it comes to each sound, placed, I cannot help but think it is for a reason. It makes me wonder what went through Summers’ head when he produced the album: ii. I imagine when producers who make music for movies, they have a scene that they have to compose. What was Summers mirroring? Is it inspiration from his life, playing back in his mind? Perhaps, it is coming forth from a dream.
Luckily, the artist made a statement about what inspired him.
“I realized at a certain point I was using social media as a way to distract myself as I listened back to the pieces I was working on. While it wasn’t intentional, it clearly had an effect on the directions I took. I started to see these songs as a journey through the past year and what I was experiencing internally…”
Does it remind of anything? The SyFy channel, my childhood, movies from the 60s and 70s (‘Psycho’ and ‘Midnight Lace’, ET, and the names Stephen King and RL Stine. By the time you make it to the seventh song, ‘From the Coneflower’, you’ll feel like you’re in a submarine—or spaceship. Allow the appealing music by Ryan Summers, the producer with two decades of credits under his name, take you away.
