The Black Ryder – ‘The Door Behind The Door’
Dreamy psychedelic duo The Black Ryder have re-emerged with their much-anticipated second offering The Door Behind The Door. Chloe Mayne checks it out:
It’s been a solid window of time since The Black Ryder crept into our hearts with their shoegaze swoon of a debut, Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride. It was a spectacular record, etching gentle grooves into our chests with the wonderfully bass-heavy ebb of tracks like ‘To Never Know You’ and ‘Let It Go’. Their sound was immediately distinguishable; it dripped, swirling in fog as though sitting in the hull of a ship in the night.
Aimee Nash and Scott Von Ryper have given us a ticket for a slightly different journey in The Door Behind The Door. It gets off to a slow and gentle start, pushing our rowboat out into twilight waters; first track ‘Babylon’ is a delicate instrumental. By the time second track ‘Seventh Moon’ swings around, Nash’s breathy vocals are sitting, in their signature, almost Hope Sandoval-esque style, on top of the movement as though supported by a swell of clouds.
‘The Going Up Was Worth The Coming Down’ plucks itself in with acoustic guitar, which comes as somewhat a surprise, as do the alternate vocals. It’s a track that furthers the considerable slowness of this record, compared to the heavier swooping throbs of Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride. It doesn’t sound like The Black Ryder, which is by no means a criticism, and the descension at the end is glorious – falling drums collide with strings in a moment of gorgeous disorientation.
The undisputed highlight of the journey downstream is ‘Let Me Be Your Light’, which has already been released as a single. It takes the best of Slowdive, a bit of MBV and gushes softly on top of it to brew a concoction of euphoria that’s both depressing and uplifting. Perhaps nostalgia is the word for it, or a sense of vague sublimity. Either way, it’s wonderfully atmospheric. It’s music to listen to on a long train journey through hushed landscapes, music for self reflection – but not in words, jut looking and noting what’s there, the kind of music that lets you breathe with it, softly squeezing your hand. It’s pretty tough to top Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride, but The Door Behind The Door gives it a solid go; a gentler and more intricate bloom in The Black Ryder’s psychedelic field. You can wrap your fingers around it by heading along to their website.
Words by Chloe Mayne.
