Brooklyn guitarist Ryan Dugré has worked as a sideman for the likes of Cass McCombs and Eleanor Friedberger, but his solo music is composed of cinematic, guitar-led instrumentals. His new LP Three Rivers, out 19th February on 11A records, has a strong acoustic focus, one that’s been described as being more aligned with Erik Satie’s piano music or Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Post Cards.
That visual element of his work transfers beautifully on the album track Glace Bay. It’s so gentle-paced that it both slows and compresses time – distant memories become briefly vivid and distant ghosts enter the present. Underneath it there is a longing and peacefulness…a feeling that’s hard to define but one which you can easily imagine bubbling to the surface when reading of our ancestors and their struggles, an awareness that those struggles and hardships lead to your very existence. Ryan Dugré:
Over the past year, I have spent time looking through what records I could find about my ancestors. It has always intrigued me to try to picture what their lives were like. Hearing about their struggles and the relative poverty they endured puts things into perspective for me. Glace Bay is where my great-grandfather Edward Macmillan was born. It’s a coal mining town on the eastern tip of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. His father died in the mines in 1897 when he was three, leaving him as the eventual provider of the family. This piece is named in his memory.
Three Rivers is the follow up to last years The Humors, and expands on that records vision, with guest spots from some of Brooklyn’s most accomplished sidemen and session players.
Pre-Order Three Rivers: https://ryandugre.bandcamp.com/album/three-rivers
Photo Credit: Annette Wong