New - Ryan, Dylan - In The Same Room With A Cactus - LP

The songs for “In The Same Room With A Cactus” originated in Dylan Ryan’s Los Feliz apartment during the Summer of 2022. After spending much of the spring on tour drumming with experimental rockers, Man Man, he began sketching ideas for something initially intended to be a new recording with his fusion trio, SAND. From his kitchen table studio looking out onto Franklin Ave, Ryan cobbled together a handful of pieces that evolved into “In The Same Room With A Cactus.”

Presented with a unique writing environment, beside a window essentially at street level, Ryan embraced these surroundings and allowed them to inspire the writing process. “I started acknowledging my blurring senses of invention and reality pertaining to these faces, briefly - but regularly - entering and exiting my window frame like theatre." Leaving the blank space - the unknown parts - became somewhat of a unifying compositional tool and the notion of encouraging the listener's ear to wander where it wants, the album’s thematic golden thread. With this in mind, the songs on “In The Same Room With A Cactus” play with overlapping swaths of instrumentations blurring any concrete, established rhythm. “I wanted to have that element of the unfamiliar familiar in these pieces. The...  more