Each Measure Feature: Ryan John Clary
FEATURE
The opening track on Boston-based artist Ryan John Clary’s new two-song single is called hardtochange. He’s right—it is hard to change, but these songs pass the “face-change test”—that enigmatic measure of a song’s vibe, gauging its elusive power by its ability to make you unconsciously contort your face as the music’s energy moves through you. The body doesn’t lie; as your head bobs along with the music, you know—there is something inherently true in these songs.
By referring to these songs’ “vibe”—a word that has become so overused it has almost entirely lost its meaning—I do not intend to reduce the merits of these songs, which are many, to a mere feeling. These songs deftly blend country, bedroom pop, and R&B, demonstrating a grasp of these genres’ bedrock characteristics. hardtochange is exemplary in its usage of a featured artist, as fellow Boston-based artist corinna gives a vocal performance that I found incredibly moving, the contours of corinna’s voice perfectly complementing Clary’s.
But these artists have created a little ecosystem with this project, a world marked by the free flow of ideas and emotions in exchange for a genuine sense of catharsis. It’s comforting, it’s warm, it’s open, it strives to be more than its component parts—and it succeeds.
The project is sneakily profound. talk about stands out for its lyrical sparsity, putting its thumb right on that sense of finding oneself at the end of a rope, at a loss for words but still yearning for the words to communicate one’s feelings. hardtochange captures the dejection that sets in when you realize your attempts at positive change have proven fruitless. corinna effectively piles on this feeling of failure when they try to play the comparison game: “The ways you’ve changed while I’m still frozen / the days that pass while you’re hoping / that this really matters, that this isn’t nothing / Oh I promise you / even though I’m stagnant, this has to mean something.”
It’s precisely the practice of communicating despite feelings of stagnation that makes this project mean something. By allowing themselves to bleed over the canvas that is the “two songs” single, these artists have achieved something significant: a spiritual uplift for anyone who finds their way into the project’s ecosystem. Through the universality of its ideas, something intangible is created—a vibe, for lack of better terms—a solace for its listeners.
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