reviews / 2016

RY X - Dawn

Name: RY X – Dawn
Item: Dawn
Rating: 7.5
Author: Giulia Quaranta

2016 (Infectious)

alternative, songwriter

by Giulia Quaranta

7.5

In 2010, Ry Cuming had recorded an album for Jive Records in the vein of ultra-pop artists like Maroon5, all falsetto vocals and talent-show melodies. It's strange, then, to find him in 2016 with a work that is exactly the opposite. The Australian artist, after adopting the pseudonym RY X, chose to immerse himself in a completely different atmosphere, starting with the 2010 EP "Berlin", whose compositions flowed into this debut album.

“Dawn” is a work with a soft, experimental attitude, moving through 12 tracks in a coherent and homogeneous way, despite the fact that its melodic profile is rich and multifaceted; indeed, it lingers in the indie-folk undergrowth with the same taste for acoustic sounds and for gently electronic ones, without shying away from pop forays.

A featherlight melting pot, giving rise to a viscerally dreamlike overall vision, able to coil itself now into mantra-like motifs, now into dilated, morbid sounds, recalling at times James Blake (“Lean”, “Deliverance”), at other times Bon Iver (“Only”).

The guitar moves with a lightness far greater than it did on the EP “Berlin”, as becomes clear comparing the two versions of “Shortline” present on each. Here it's as if it doesn't want to disturb the Australian's vocal textures, which summon up images, memories, hopes and sensations, with the naturalness of a voice that seems to dance like wind through the trees (“Berlin”), or lose itself in the twists of impetuous climaxes, lingering over every word (“Beacon”).

What the album lacks as a whole is perhaps a real jolt, an overpowering, rough and sudden emotion capable of upending the listener mid-listen. But that's just how “Dawn” is: the polished compactness that defines it is both its strength and its limitation: take it or leave it.

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24/09/2016

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Giulia Quaranta, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition