The first volume of Ryan Tram’s Digital Voyage is a sweet and immersive electropop experience with a gentle, fair flair of indie, suburban pop á la Arcade Fire in the midst of all the charmingly warped and processed sonic atmospheres and tightly written melodies and well constructed songs.
Musician and producer Ryan Tram is based in Markham, Canada. Known by his stage name ReSeT Ryan Tram, Tram just released Digital Voyage, Vol. 1. The concept album is almost entirely instrumental, telling the story of a virtual couple, Red and Blue, their separation and their feelings of heartbreak, alongside being trapped in a virtual world. The piano driven compositions are lovely on their own if you pay no mind to the storyline running underneath, ensuring that the listen will be rewarding for lovers of glitch and art pop.
The production on the album is just as rewarding and as immersive as the bright and upbeat songwriting. Confident in its glitchiness and vocal warping, as well as in its driving and economically punchy beats, pieces like the dub inspired intro ‘Elevate’ and the driving ‘Above’ are superb listens for a night drive. ‘Anew’ is a short piece full of musical, rhythmic, and production ideas that ends way too soon, while ‘Human’ is a similarly fertile piece that takes ample time to explore each of its exciting ideas.
The jumpy ‘Breeze’ is an engaging piece full of intertwining, arpeggiating synths and bouncy melodies. An immersive experience that highlights Tram’s production skills. Ryan Tram’s talent in processing vocals and soundscapes really comes to form in the gorgeous ‘Last May’. The sweetly melancholic ballad is melodically rich and with a lush, fulfilling flow with varying dynamics and generally mild and accommodating feel to it. One of the album’s most memorable tunes. Tram also put together a delightful 4-minute teaser clip for the album with help from his sister Emily Tram. A fitting accompaniment for an album that has been in the making for 4 years, telling a delightful story that is inspired by Tram’s own coming of age.
Ryan Tram excels at world building, whether digital or real. An artist inspired by and helped by a group of talented friends like Andrew Huang, YouTube extraordinaire, and Laura Canela, an up and coming artist who helped Tram with a few choruses and lyrics. Tram is also fascinated by the concept of a digital world and a digital self, concepts he is able to incorporate into his music with help from his time spent in Valencia, pursuing his Berklee College of Music masters degree. An efficient and capable sound designer with a curious way of telling interesting stories, Ryan Tram’s Digital Voyage is most fulfilling.