Oct. 06/ 2009--Review of "Desert Opuses" in Acid Dragon (thanks to Phil Jackson):
"I first heard the music of Ryan Settee from Winnipeg (aided and abetted by other musicians on additional guitar and percussion as well as harmonica and Moog) on Aural Innovations space rock radio and contacted Ryan who very helpfully sent me CD and LP versions of his ‘Desert Opuses’. Since then there has been no turning back as I have been turned on and tuned into a kind of ‘stoner rock’ that is largely unexplored territory for me.
The thing that strikes you most about ‘Desert Opuses’ is how the pieces link together conceptually to create a hypnotic tapestry of sounds that Ryan recommends you listen to through headphones. Ryan explains that the album is based on a chaotic Middle Eastern theme, both musically and lyrically (although is predominantly instrumental). ‘Desert Opuses’ world is “the sound of near industrial mechanized paranoia, fuzz pedal worship, overdriven amps, mystical vocals and drone-y psychedelic headphone friendly atmospherics,” he says.
Ryan’s stated influences include Spacemen 3, Black Sabbath and The Stooges (neither of the last two evident to me) but the music made me think of many different things like The Velvet Underground in places probably because of the dark, lugubrious* (yet not so, as I found the music strangely uplifting!*) atmosphere. You keep expecting the music to expand into something else like on ‘The Ruins of the Pyramids’ where the piano and harmonica had me thinking of Supertramp! The point that the music has a rich melodic underbelly is I suppose what makes it so immediate and appealing and yet also rewarding to repeated listening on other levels. I listened particularly carefully to ‘Headphone Opuses’ the track that attracted me on Aural Innovations and realised that the rich bass sound Ryan gets on the recording is another reason why I wished to explore further. I could easily go through ‘Desert Opuses’ track by track and, as an album it is strong enough for such analysis but suffice to say that discovering High Watt Electrocutions is definitely one of the high points of 2009 for me.
(Phil Jackson)"
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