Rye hit my radar via The Wild is Calling back in August, with “I Feel Everything” — a melancholy and contemplative trip-hop single that was an instant favourite:
“I Feel Everything” was her second single as Rye, following the mellow “June” that pairs gentle guitar and vocals with a somewhat frenetic drum pattern with excellent results:
Rye is the stage name of Rugile Deveikyte, a singer/songwriter from Lithuania who now lives in Newcastle. The last single in the leadup to the EP release is called “How Do I Tell You What I’m Thinking?” and she shifts back and forth from English to her native Lithuanian with such fluidity that I didn’t notice it at first listen. This song also uses drum sequencing to build tension and mood as the song progresses:
Her debut EP I Feel Everything came out October 25, and even though it’s only 8 tracks, it’s got a few more surprises. Opener “Everything’s Fallin’ Apart” which ends with the lyric “Every song I play/is from my heart”, and the songs that follow bear that out.
Rye has a ton of vocal versatility. On the songs above, her voice is rich and strong, but on songs like “Laser-Like” she shifts into a more casual tone. She works in a lot of poetry and spoken word elements into the mix, which add a layer of introspection and intimacy to the collection. “Perfect” is the centrepiece of the EP — she does all of the above, singing in English and Spanish(!), and the song builds to a gorgeous and hypnotic crescendo:
In this interview with NARC, she describes “Perfect” this way:
The sound gets darker but there’s hope underlying it. Its central message is that pain is inevitable and we can’t pretend things are always good but we don’t have to be defined by this. There are beautiful things to appreciate out there; we need to find those pockets of happiness when there’s a lot of sadness around us.
There is beauty and sadness all over this fantastic debut EP. Her launch party is coming up November 8 in Newcastle, and I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot more about her after that.
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