COVER STORY | FEB 2022
Putting out an album is no small feat, even
for experienced artists. Ryan Watson is
releasing his first at just eighteen.
BY IAN MCKAY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY IAN MCKAY
FEBRUARY 16, 2022
Ryan Watson, 2021, Los Angeles, CA by Ian McKay
What made you want to be a musician?
I’ve wanted to be a musician full time since I was in high school. I’ve been playing music since I was 7, but I didn’t take it seriously until I started making beats in high school. My friends and I were bored one day and wanted to make shit, and we listened to some of the beats I had made and they really liked them. This eventually turned into us having ‘studio sessions’ in my room, where they would take a mic into my dark and claustrophobic closet and record over my beats.
How would you describe your musical style?
My music style is always changing really. I’ll usually just start with an idea, and my head kind of fills in the gaps and stuff, if you know what I mean. A lot of it depends on what I’m listening to at the time as well - like, my sound has really evolved with my music taste, if that makes sense.
Tell us about the new album.
[The] new album is nine tracks all produced by yours truly. I’ve been working on this project since like last summer, which is when I made the first song, and I just made more and more throughout the school year. The genre is electronic kinda synthpop and some vapor wave. I don’t know, you honestly just have to listen to it for yourself to kinda understand the whole vision.
What was the process like creating the album?
The new album is mostly just all midi. For those who don’t know, midi is basically a keyboard that plugs into the computer, and I can record synths or drums or whatever I need it to. I wasn’t purposely making stuff for a concise album, I just kinda realized, like, "Oh shit, these could all really work together." Most of my song ideas would just be, like, playing something cool and messing around with the like different synth sounds that Logic [Pro, a music software] has. I’m really trying to learn about synth design, which is super fucking complicated and I still don’t really fully understand it, but I’m working on carving out a sound for myself.
Album artwork by Enrique Ajanel, 2021
What other music has influenced your work?
For this record in particular, I got a lot of inspiration from random EDM stuff I listened to back in middle school like the Monstercat label, Home, or Porter Robinson. When I first started working on this, I was listening to a lot of ambient like Aphex Twin, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Grouper – actually, originally the album was supposed to be ambient, but I took out all the ambient tracks I had. Only two of them showed up on this record, I have like seven more I can drop if these get a positive reception.
You’ve released singles under several names – Adamantem, Midnight on Venus, Free Wat – what label will the new album be under?
The album is dropping under Adamantem on [Feb.] 22nd, hopefully, if everything’s ready in time. Funny story about the Adamantem name is that’s actually the name of the group my friends and I had back in high school. I only ended up dropping one song we made and it’s still up on this account. But we had a bunch of unreleased music we never did anything with – I don’t know, I just didn’t ever really get around to it. Then the pandemic hit and we just stopped making stuff together.
When and where can we expect the album?
It’s on Soundcloud under Adamantem, please go check it out if you have a chance. IF