Albums: The Ruby Suns : Christopher
Listen To The Ruby Suns : Christopher
Who Are The Ruby Suns?
The dawning of the new millennium was a bad time to be an indie pop musician in New Zealand.
Ten years earlier, Flying Nun Records was arguably hitting its stride. However aided by its demise in the late 90s - dance music in its cheesiest forms had taken hold of what possibly could have been a live gig-going music scene.
Perhaps in backlash to this, a healthy uprising of primitive guitar based rock bands had surfaced in New Zealand (a scene which would eventually produce bands like the D4 and the Datsuns). However if you were a musician whose stylings were neither techno or rock, the chances of you finding a healthy audience were slim at best, and the chances of you finding a local label were Kate Moss.
This left Jonathan Bree and Scott Mannion (both sitting on what would be the first Brunettes and Tokey Tones albums respectively) feeling a bit disenfranchised.
After a chance meeting at Marbecks Record Store in downtown Auckland where Jonathan was working as a slave, Jonathan and Scott found they had much more in common than an appreciation for the new Lee Hazlewood reissues.
A mutual bitching session about their predicaments as bedroom recording artists (a far greater feat back when Windows 98 was the standard operating system, and Pro Tools was largely unobtainable) led to a brave and somewhat stupid idea.
They would form their own record label.
Christopher Review
The ethereal pop of The Ruby Suns falls somewhere within a Brian Eno-meets-Joy Division soundscape, cut from a Pet Sounds mold, building layer upon layer of synth melodrama. Suns mastermind Ryan McPhun has a vision for marshmallow pop nirvana straight out of 1981, but laces it with a sense of underlying charm and massaged craftsmanship, ensuring against the sterility that too often mired the synthesized pop of the genre’s early 80’s MTV-soaked golden age.
With repeat listening guaranteed to unearth new melodic shades and sonic colors, Christopher induces butterflies in the stomach as well as cloud-strewn daydreams. Tracks like “Desert Of Pop” contain multi-tacked vocal happiness, set to adventurous, dance hall programming (one gets the impression live drums couldn’t keep up with McPhun’s level of eccentricity). “Dramatikk” is as ambient as the busiest New Order soundrush (their track “Bizarre Love Triangle” immediately comes to mind), while “Kingfisher Call Me” eases up on the synth to let the vocals breathe a bit more, enough to invoke a Broken Frame-era Depeche Mode vibe.
Seemingly artistically re-awakened by time spent in solace amid Scandinavia’s pop scene, and drawing inspiration from classic electronica babble, Christopher is Ryan McPhun’s stab at bubblegum-trance immortality.
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Sources : The Ruby Suns Photo | Listen To Christopher | The Ruby Suns Biography | Christopher Review
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