- Saoirse takes a trip to the dark side.
- Saoirse Ryan's music, as both a DJ and producer, has always had an edge to it. For every bassline sashaying its way across the stereo field, there's a minor chord key sequence just around the corner ready to darken the mood. But her newest EP, The Monogamous, takes these tendencies and to further extremes. From the disintegrating disco chords on "Catfished" to the EBM flirtation on "Vampire Heart," these are her darkest, edgiest tech house cuts to date.
The first two tracks on the record, "Mangomouse" and "Heated Cloud," are peak-time hardgroove bangers, at least on paper. But Ryan puts together the elements that's more challenging than it is familiar. "Heated Cloud," in particular, has big rave stabs and a TikTok-ready breakdown. But she mixes the hand drums so high in the mix that it borders on the uncomfortable. The synth progression is a bit too fast, like a comedown that showed up earlier than expected. "Vampire Heart" goes full goth, somewhere between electro and EBM. Once you chuck in the compressed vocal, it's like Front 242 wrote a country song and asked Nathan Coles to do the mixdown.
The last few years have been a whirlwind for Ryan. She's always been a prolific DJ, but since releasing her debut EP in 2021, she seems to have transcended to final DJ boss form. She released another killer fabric and played about every club and festival in the Euro house circuit. Oh, and did I mention she also started the UK's first queer music festival? If this is anything to go by, it should all be champagne and roses for a DJ who has been putting the hours into her craft for, well, pretty much her entire life. But as these tracks underline, she's still not ready to settle down, still looking for ways to make the punters at clubland's biggest stages get weird with her.
Tracklist01. Mangomouse
02. Heated Cloud
03. Vampire Heart
04. Catfished
05. Driver