New Artist Highlight: Devin James Fry’s Foray Into Electronica is Producing Some Attention-grabbing Outcomes With Current Singles

Austin blues rock band Title Sayers is a type of not-so-well-kept secrets and techniques that indie followers uncover and fall in love with on the ancillary gigs round Austin City Limits or SXSW. As smoky and bluesy as a Lord Huron or a Hozier however with a decidedly grungy bent to maintain them from being lumped in with the the sometimes-too-contrived indie people style, Title Sayers space native gem in a metropolis filled with native gems. That mentioned, we right here at EDM are keen to guess nobody noticed Title Sayer frontman Devin James Fry branching out into electronica as a solo act coming. Nicely right here’s one other shock, indie rock followers: he’s been doing it for 9 years.

Let’s qualify this a bit: Fry simply began making his personal beats in his most up-to-date tracks, “Purple Glue” and “No Hope.” His first solo album Headwater Songs in 2013, in truth, was much more blues-and-folk-informed than his band. Actually, this album launched earlier than Title Sayers’ first EP 4 Desires. Radicans, Fry’s first digital-leaning solo album truly got here out in 2020. A mixture of acoustic, Gipsy Kings-style guitars, bluesy vox and drums and post-punk songwriting a’la Nick Cave, the one digital manufacturing comes from easy ambient sound design nevertheless it’s nonetheless there.

So all that mentioned, “Purple Glue” and “No Hope” are a departure for Fry to say the least. Launched as a duo, it appears with these two tracks Fry needed to carry that publish punk taste from Radicans to his very first digital tracks. “Purple Glue” is decidedly essentially the most publish punk of the 2, with Fry’s wealthy, bluesy Tom Waits-esque voice smoothing out the sides of the gravely journey hop beat and synths. There’s an industrial high quality there was nicely, once more from these uncooked synths and the echoey sound design in addition to the form of desolation within the vox and twisting of notes. It’s what one would suppose Ian Curtis may need completed if he’d survived, had entry to fashionable gear and out of the blue misplaced his tone deafness. Put up punk turns into publish rock turns into publish…industrial? Attention-grabbing concept and it undoubtedly makes “Purple Glue” a leading edge observe.

“No Hope” that includes Otem Rellik and Nat Tate is much more integrative of publish punk and industrial ambients with what’s primarily a entice beat. Fry and Tate’s looped vocal refrain grounds the observe, or quite, swirls it into an inky sonic abyss. Rellik comes over the entire heavy Bauhaus-gone-digital mess with verse that’s half rap and half spoken phrase a’la John Cooper Clarke to essentially drive dwelling the verbal level in no unsure phrases. The impact of this collaboration is sort of a extra bluesy, industrial and dystopian model of mid-era Gorillaz. Is that this publish punk hip hop? We definitely hope so.

With “No Hope” and “Purple Glue,” Devin James Fry appears to not solely be increasing into digital and scratching some form of digital itch that none of us knew was even there, however he would possibly even be creating new genres alongside the way in which. For this reason it’s essential to at all times preserve one’s eye on Austin if one needs to remain within the know with music. Even the artists like Fry and his Title Sayers who appear to be they’re all classic indie people can out of the blue come out with some loopy trap-laced hip hop. “Preserve Austin bizarre,” certainly, and along with his solo tracks wanting simply as widespread on Spotify because the Title Sayers ones, we will doubtless anticipate much more publish punk, indie pop, weird-ass electronica.

“No Hope” and “Purple Glue” are out now and may be streamed on Spotify, bought digitally on Bandcamp or on vinyl at Old Faithful Records.