All music written, recorded and performed by Ryan J Raffa in Taipei, Taiwan during late 2021 on moog matriarch, modular, fender rhodes, snare drums, cymbals, percussion, op1, tape machines, and field recorders.

Every sound was captured for this specific occasion

Mastering by Taylor Deupree
Vinyl cut by Barry "Baza" Grint at Alchemy
Layout by Drew Heffron
Photographs by Ryan J Raffa

4 e and a is about the infinite spaces between. As a classically trained percussionist, Raffa sat in front of a metronome for the majority of their life. And in their mind, they would play with the spaces between those clicks. In especially challenging times, Ryan would attempt to expand and stretch those spaces into forever. Just existing in the between. This record is about these moments (and places) when we are living in those infinite spaces.

That time of intense musical focus was also Ryan's first introduction to an analog synthesizer. As a teenager, their drum teacher was Herb Flower, an incredible human with light beams of creative energy pouring out of him and his musical family at all times. A parent of another student of Mr. Flower’s was an electrical engineer who had recently been laid off during large cutbacks at Carrier, one of the major employers at that time in Syracuse where Raffa grew up. This parent, with their newly acquired free time, hand-built a drum machine, housed in a large wooden cabinet with 8 or so unmarked knobs, and they gave this synthesizer to Mr. Flower. The sound from that machine was glorious. And Mr. Flower, their drum teacher, would turn a few knobs, make a pattern and have me play along with it during rehearsal. These moments were such a gift, and I know those moments are still reverberating today. Raffa thinks about that time of experimentation, of exploration, of shared love of sound and music as a place that they can go to, a place we can all go to, whenever we choose.

4 e and a

Spirits Of Menghuanhu

Thoughtful In Late Nights

This is a live performance I did as part of the Sound of the Mountains festival in Nara, Japan on February 28, 2019.

Japan Ambient - Sound of the Mountains (Live in Nara, Japan)

Music and Artwork by Ryan J Raffa
Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Shimmering Moods Records 2021
SHM 163

Ryan J Raffa - You Are Ocean

Ryan J Raffa - Lately

A sample of tracks from my record Ginkgo. Originally released February 28, 2020 on Muzan Editions. Available at rjraffa.bandcamp.com/album/ginkgo

From Muzan Editions:
"Ryan J Raffa’s latest release is an engrossing listen that questions the things we understand, the forms of unspoken communication we take for granted, and amplifies the sense of personal, cultural or geographical dislocation we sometimes feel; to quote the artist himself, 'Our quest of sense-making can deliver us far from truth.'

Created in parallel with a short story about 'living under an occupation' - which occupation I am unsure- details are scant, but I hope to read this story one day - adds to the narrative flow throughout, carrying an album full of plaintive melodies in forward motion that is well-crafted, full of smart harmonic moves and essentially human and demands one-pointed listening."

“Gorgeous, highly textural ambient...an emotional close listen.”
- Bandcamp, New and Notable

Credits:
All music by Ryan J Raffa
Mastered by Nathan Moody at Obsidian Sound
Photo by Joshua Stefane

Ginkgo

Memory Field [What Might Happen Remix] (Bonus Track)

First track from the recently released We Have Always Existed EP

Music and Artwork by Ryan J Raffa
Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Label : A Red Thread (ART 05)

All proceeds in January 2021 from this release benefit the Transgender Law Center (https://transgenderlawcenter.org/)

My hope with this release is to help support a vital trans-led organization and add to the positive voices speaking up to advocate for the rights of all transgender and gender nonconforming people around the world. As someone who identifies as non-binary, I know first-hand how important the assistance and education TLC provides is to the communities they empower.

There is a full length version of this in the works that will be coming out on Aural Canyon in April 2021.

We Have Always Existed

Support on Bandcamp

Ryan J Raffa - We Have Always Existed

All music by Ryan J Raffa
Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Artwork by Sam Prekop

Label: Aural Canyon

And Back Around Again

Ryan J Raffa - And Back Around Again

2 tracks from the Yumi Iwaki / Ryan J Raffa split release Living Distances

All music by Yumi Iwaki and Ryan J Raffa
Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Artwork by Alëna Olasyuk

From Muzan Editions:
"On Living Distances, Yumi Iwaki and Ryan J Raffa come together to share their unique visions of movement and place.
On Side A, Iwaki guides us through the upper reaches, with each track seeming to describe some specific region of clouds and how we might get there. Twinkling arpeggios traces lines over breathing seas of drone in tracks like MidAir and Dots, and in Spiral Flow the listener feels propelled upwards across descending latitudes like in some Escherian grid. Contrasting movement, myriad destinations, Iwaki’s compositions present us with a rich, multidimensional map of places we can only visit in dreams.

On Side B, Raffa outlines a journey across more earthly terrain, where washes of white noise and static lap against our feet (SF Dreams); where struck metal rings out through uninhabited valleys across which beautiful dream-beasts gallop towards the horizon (Correlation); and where friends walk, hand in hand, through a checkerboard landscape of sunlight and shade (Hands Whistle). In Wonder Wander, we are spirited away to an imaginary shore, where the wind and waves swirl across the stereo spectrum, a pebbled beach crackles pleasingly between our toes, and seagulls soar overhead. Taken as a whole, Raffa’s side of Living Distances seems less like the map to the places our heart longs to visit and more like the diary we would keep once we arrived."

Living Distances

Ryan J Raffa - Hands Whistle

SF Dreams

Ryan J Raffa - SF Dreams

Ryan J Raffa is a multidisciplinary artist working with sound and image. They explore personal geographies, collective memory, and transformation through improvisation. Raffa is currently based in Taipei, Taiwan.

-> rjraffa.bandcamp.com
-> rjraffa.net
-> instagram.com/rjraffa/
-> twitter.com/rjraffa

Ryan J Raffa

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