Part of Me

Matthew Ryals

Matthew Ryals is a Brooklyn based electronic musician who creates deeply felt synth-pop crafted and constructed using a Eurorack Modular Synth, drum machine and voice. Coming out of a fervent experimental community in Cleveland, OH, Ryals’ work has been a process of deconstructing the pop song structure, building it up its component parts using the notoriously fickle and endlessly tweakable Modular Synth and then performing the song live incorporating all of the changing variables inherent in the instrument. The challenge has been a fruitful one for Ryals as both a vehicle and foil for his self-reflective and highly personal songwriting. On “Part of Me” we hear the human heart processed through the internal logic of a thinking machine.

A vocal heavy performance providing the narrative structure for the intersecting arpeggios and surging house beat at the center of “Part of Me” is new for Ryals. “Part of Me” is a meditation on the uncertainty that stalks every promising relationship when competing commitments and incompatible life goals begin to take shape like gathering storm clouds in the distance. The question presents itself to either cut short a potentially rich relationship or risk prolonging a doomed romance. “Part of Me” has both feet planted firmly in ambiguity. Matthew Ryals distinct shift into synth-pop for this track using the bespoke tools of the experimental musician is a rich and rewarding limit-testing move that yields an immense pay off.