Bryce Terry – Queen City Sounds and Art

Bryce Terry’s “The Only Game In Town” opens with ethereal drones like a walk through a hallway into an abandoned building. From there a steady, syncopated beat anchors screaming streams of tone, sustained, distorted synth and a ghost of a melody in the background. Rapid echos of harmonic sound give way to the latter early in the song as the beat establishes itself and the layers convey a sense of space like being given access to a secret area in which clandestine activities are undertaken and moves are made, think something like the vibe of an underground casino that is hidden away in the back rooms of a legitimate business that operates mostly on cash but in the after hours deals in the black market economy. Like the rest of Terry’s album Two-Thousand Yard Stare there is an undercurrent of menace in the song that suits the album’s themes of addiction and succumbing to the inner demons that drive one in that direction but despite the song’s title the song doesn’t sound like video game music like this song and a few others on the album reflect the moments when one is able to break free of the spell of addiction for some moments to see one’s life for what it is and the context in which one has placed oneself in service to addiction. In this way it’s reminiscent of Oneohtrix Point Never’s soundtrack work for the film Good Time and that film’s tone of unreality and gritty reality side by side to give resonant tonal contrasts. Listen to “The Only Game In Town” on Spotify and follow Bryce Terry at the links below.

Bryce Terry on Apple Music

Bryce Terry on Instagram

“Archangel” closes out Bryce Terry’s new EP Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Papercuts. After the perilous soundscape of “Asylum” and its nervous energy like being in the head of someone running from a mysterious threat and wandering to safer space and the jittery, percussion driven rhythms of “Acetone,” “Archangel” seems like a fusion of Terry’s creative instincts and methods for this release in combining a minimal techno style in the production but with the moody and unpredictable directions one might expect from an IDM track. The almost vocal sound near the beginning of the sounds like an announcement made indistinct by distance but not by volume. A shuffling beat and the motif of that announcement sound accenting the paces of the song that feels like an urgent walk bolstered by bright arpeggios of melody to suggest a focus with a clear destination in mind, a sense of mission punctuated by moments of contemplation manifested as linger, low end pulses. By the end of the song the ethereal drone that floats over all the frenetic energy of the rhythm unites for a denouement of reaching the end of a road of amplified activity. Listen to “Archangel” on Spotify as well as the rest of the Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Papercuts EP and connect with Terry at the links below.