Funky Town - The Ryne Experience (Album Review)
Ryne Clarke is an artist of many talents. In Lowell, you can hear him co-hosting a radio program called For the Record w/ Ryne Clarke & Sleeping Timmy every Sunday on WRWW FM 92.3 out of the area's broadcast center installed in Lowell High School. As a curator, he has done work with the LowellArts Center for their house concert series, gathering artists and recording concerts for listeners to enjoy. As a bandleader, you can hear him singing and performing with various iterations of his group, The Ryne Experience, that has made an impact in their short time together. They have performed at venues around West Michigan, at a weekly residency at the Tip Top Deluxe every Monday in February 2020, and at different live broadcasts for WYCE and at The Listening Room. Each time they perform or press an album, the listener is treated to a different type of experience, living up to their namesake!
With the release of their latest album, Funky Town, the group delivers a twangy rock vibe steeped in syrupy surrealness. Right away, the track “Paul Mashake” plays with space by panning all of the sounds to enhance the stereo effect of the sweeping textures. Songs like “Canopy” and “There is a Reason” are set in a Western saloon somewhere on the outskirts of the galaxy, combining elements of older country music styles layered with spatial effects and synthesizers. “Moonrise” makes use of strings and off key vocals, keyboards, and bell sounds to add a sort of haunting quality to the tune. “Inner Run” and “NFC” play around with time-feels to add another layer to psychedelic textures. Just when you think you’re understanding the sonic narrative and you know what’s coming next, they throw in a track like “OPE” that slowly builds off of a dissonant organ chord to really take you out of your expectations. The Michigan phrase, meaning everything from “excuse me” to “I’m sorry,” fits perfectly to name a tune that disrupts your comfortability while listening.
The title track, “Funky Town,” doesn’t appear until the end, but with it comes a resounding chorus that feels like a summary of just what Funky Town is and what we’ve come to learn about it. It is a town that is both familiar and unfamiliar, with familiar shapes colored by the sounds The Ryne Experience have chosen to display. The track is then followed by a comedic outro that reprises the chorus with some Doo-Wop vocals underneath, adding further to the surreal qualities of the whole record by introducing a new style right as the album comes to a close. Ryne Clarke definitely knows how to curate an experience. Whether it’s assembling new, eclectic artists for a house concert series or programming a radio broadcast, he has a clear aesthetic that he enjoys and knows how to communicate that effectively. He cites Wilco, Bob Dylan, Mac DeMarco, and Father John Misty, alongside any music elements from the 60s and 70s, as his main influences, but I would also toss in The Lennon Claypool Delirium as what this album reminds me of currently. It’s a trip through familiar song structures paired with unfamiliar sounds and textures, blending the electric and the acoustic with some great engineering from bassist Jerry Wenger. Funky Town is a place you’d want to visit, but just be open to the idea that your car might need some space mileage to make the journey.
Website: https://ryneshyne.club/pages/ryneexp
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ryneexp
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryne_real
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryneexp/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3zX9T3RstDdJvvDk3kGRQX?si=D2Q5qqI9QtqfDiSSwDIzOA
Radio Program: https://lowellradio.org/fortherecord-2/
