R.Y.N – Relics (Collected Works 2003 – 2011) (2020)

R.Y.N. is Pete Burn (Marzuraan, Orrin De Forrest, Traqueto Records) and Dean Glaister (Romance). From 2003 until 2011 they recorded three albums and one 7” for Drone Records. And that’s the menu for this one, Drone.

I first met Pete when visiting Newcastle as a 18 year old to see his then band Marzuraan play with Boris in a tiny room by the cold Tyne river. Marzuraan were an incredible band, beginning as a guitar/bass duo ala Earth 2 and growing into rock band who fused the instrumental hardcore of Gore with the diseased poetry Rollins Band and the bereft, emptiness of Khanate. I was hooked and transformed. Then I met Dean.

Some of the first conversations I ever shared about noise in music were with Dean Glaister. While I wanted to explore the context of all these things Dean was steadfastly anti-theoretical about these things. With his Romance project he had acquired a mind-boggling array of pedals and noisemakers and without any hint of ego or academia he threw himself into incredibly intense dynamic harsh noise sets ala Facialmess and Kazumoto Endo. To say that seeing him play above a damp Newcastle pub in the early 00’s was a big impression on me would be an understatement. It truly started a life-long interest in sound experimentation and how it can and should be accessible.

Despite all this nostalgic reminiscence I don’t believe I ever saw R.Y.N. play though. Something just passed us all by and time just goes and goes. Pete contacted me last year after we met briefly at a Shellac gig. Turns out that R.Y.N. had a lot of unreleased tracks which absolutely deserve to see the light of day and so this compilation of unreleased ‘Relics’ of his duo has come together. Via Burns’ guitars, amps and microphones and Glaisters’ table of tricks R.Y.N. produce some deeply atmospheric, void like drone music. Part way between the work of MSBR in ambient mode and The Dead C / Michael Morley / Gate. R.Y.N. are able to conjure masses of sound which feel wooden, earthen, tied to their instruments and never lost through process or computer sheen. The music combines field recording, minimalist instrumental approaches (see the Niblock esque ‘Winds II”) and an emotional core of miserable contemplation, an energy which certainly crossed over from Pete’s earlier Marzuraan work.


Weird write up I know. Lots of reflection but that’s what this is. Recordings of a time shared by people, friends and how time marches on through it all.