Rory Mcbride Will Whisk You Away With His “Sonic Lullaby”
- BUZZ LA
- Jun 2, 2023
- 3 min read
Rory McBride, the 29-year-old American singer and poet, weaves together soft psychedelic folk-rock infused with blues and an aura of spirituality.
Raised in rural Illinois, he describes his artistic pursuits as “a window to the world”, leading him into a multidisciplinary career in visual arts across New York, Paris, and Tokyo.
The day he wrote his first song marked a transformative turning point in his life, where the guitar became a portal to a new identity and style. During the pandemic, he immersed himself in nature which laid the foundation for his debut LP, which he developed through exploration of poetry and contemplation of literature.
With simplistic yet hypnotic melodies akin to Jim Morrison and John Lennon, McBride brings forth a return to simple and romantic thinking. Collaborating with Maine engineer/producer Ryan Ordway, they crafted the ethereal track "Sonic Lullaby" as part of the Sonic Lullaby EP.
"Sonic Lullaby" invites listeners on a nostalgic journey to a bygone era. Opening with a hopeful, light guitar melody, the song immediately transports you to a place of tranquillity and wonder, all the while embodying elements of romance and spirituality.
The simplicity of the melody allows McBridge’s captivating vocals to shine through as he sings, "you can take my voice, send it out over valleys, prairies, sonic waves, caves, wherever my voice happens to resound." This poetic expression evokes a sense of desire to transcend the confines of the physical world.
The timeless quality of "Sonic Lullaby" adds to its allure; it’s as if McBridge has tapped into a time capsule, bringing forth qualities of the past and present. Exuding an aura akin to the divine, listeners will be left with a profound sense of peace and introspection, as well as anticipation for Rory McBride's next artistic project.
What inspired the concept behind your enchanting song, “Sonic Lullaby”? I wrote Sonic Lullaby as the first true song from my catalogue, following a nine-minute experimental track I released in 2021. Sonic Lullaby, which is the title track for the EP is a kind of ultralight folk ballad. It negotiates a quick moving 2 chord fingerpicking progression against a vocal with a slow rhythmic sway. I wanted to lead with something ethereal and somewhat naked, which framed the approach to tracking and production. The lyrical narrative of the song encapsulates my short time writing music and ends with an image of a “waveless bay.
Can you walk us through your songwriting process? How do you compose a song from beginning to end? I start by finding the chords on my guitar that present a mood, theme or style for a song I’ve never heard before. The rest echoes my poetry creation process. I often start to sleep less, eat less, forget time and get lost in the sonics like I’m in a big primordial bath. The lyrics I sing form bridges between the chords like islands out in some undiscovered cosmic ocean. Though I haven’t yet spent a significant portion of my life writing music, I know that what I sing flows from everything I’ve seen and studied. I find it impossible to unwrite a song. What have you learned about yourself since beginning your journey into music? The learnings have come from witnessing my own expression migrate from the visual to the sonic. Almost three years into writing music, I feel like I’m still processing the sheer fact that I write songs. When I started songwriting it radically shifted my world and recast nearly every department of my lifestyle. The way I eat, exercise, dream, dress and speak are simply not the same. Where and how I like to spend time, even the people I love to keep close to me have changed, and this is a metamorphosis. I’ve gotten closer to the real style of a person I want to be, closer to the natural truth of myself. What do you hope listeners take away from your music? I’d like them to feel that they can have a host of sonic souvenirs from my world that breathe new and unforeseen life into the art of song. I aspire to make music people can jump on top of, put on repeat, and venture to new places– aesthetically, poetically, and philosophically. This speaks to the vehicular quality of songs at large. The greatest music can do what the best films do for us, the rare sensation that anything can happen. If your music were a season, which one would it be? An eternal spring.
