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Bedroom Bliss

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Ryan Ferguson has mostly been plugging along making music for himself. He’s been active on the fringes of the Hamilton music scene for years now – picking up occasional shows with the guys from Sianspheric and others. But doing his own thing, without too much concern for what others think, just might be the magic ingredient that makes it special.

Last year saw things start to really open up with requests for shows and interest from places far from his hometown. His main project electroluminescent, is electro-improvisational music that kids with good hair would probably really like.

1. Tell me about the music you used to listen to as a kid. How did this make you want to start being involved in music?

I'm not sure that anything I listened to as a kid made me want to be involved in music.  There was always a lot of music around our home (mostly just pop music) but never any instruments.  I had a couple of toy guitars as a child but I was never brought up as a musician.  It was a path I chose on my own when I was about 14ish..  I saw Public Image Limited in concert and it was such an amazing experience that it brought tears to my eyes, that was the first time that I knew that I wanted to be involved with music as opposed to just being a spectator.

2. Tell me about your full music history. Bands you’ve been in, projects and people you may have recorded with. How has this led to what you are doing now?

I briefly started a band with three of the members of this Burlington band Gleet called Erotic Flower Circus that was improvised with a really dark psychedelic feeling, like taking the wrong pill and being stuck with the consequences for a few hours.  Over the course of a month or so this band just became Gleet, this lasted a few months and we played a ton of shows in Burlington/Hamilton/Oakville and people thought it was great.  Then they stopped calling me.  I jammed with friends a bit and had a couple of one show bands that played a bunch of 'shoegaze-y' kinds of songs that I had written, but it was mostly music without any aspirations other than making music with friends and that was fun.  Around this time, Sianspheric parted ways with their guitarist Paul, I was supposed to be filling his place, I did not.  I did however help out a bit with some guitar and played keyboards on their release 'There's Always Some Place You'd Rather Be'.  Then I got depressed and stopped making music with other people all together. 

This is where electroluminescent started in late 1997 or 1998.  I made a bunch of tapes of just Then I got depressed and stopped making music with other people all together, This is where electroluminescent started. drones and free psychedelic kind of music that kids with good haircuts would probably like today.  I decided that I wanted to try and do something that sounded like Steve Reich, so I rented an 8-track for a couple of months and recorded about 25 or 30 songs that were edited down into the first three electroluminescent releases, which were all less than 20 copies and were just given to friends.

That music was the real start of the guitar loops electroluminescent, but at that time there was no affordable sample style looping devices available, there was the Lexicon JamMan and the original Boomerang Phrase Sampler but they were both too expensive. No idea of playing live ever came to mind.  Somewhere in here I got involved with Sean from Sianspheric and Locksley Taylor (future of Sianspheric) in something called echo-send or echosnd, I can't really remember, we played two shows of improvised guitar drone, the first was with Windy and Carl at Sonic Unyon's 5th anniversary party in Hamilton.  The second was in Toronto with the Vulcan Dub Squad. We played a third show a couple of years later with a big group of people that included the three of us with Matt from Sianspheric and members of Hollophonic, Sully, and Al Okada who at the time was recently ex-King Cobb Steelie and is now Microbunny. This was a lot of fun and we recorded it but it was never released.

Then I got depressed again and became addicted to watching Neon Genesis Evangelion (an anime)..  I got my own 8-track and started recording, at the same time Boss released the RC20 Loop Station, I bought it the same day they showed up, now I could play live. I played a couple of shows with a friend who is now playing bass in Sianspheric but at the time was just my friend, we were called The Blasphemous Martyrs Oblivious To Mercy. It was, again, improvised music. This time with glitchy beats, noisy drones and metal guitars.  A lot of people scratched their heads and that was that, again I'm sure kids with good hair would really like it today.  I found out that one of my favorite bands was coming to Hamilton to play so I asked if I could play the show.  electroluminescent played it's first show in March of 2002 with Surface of Eceyon. They were incredibly supportive and were the main reason that I decided to keep making music as electroluminescent and actually try and do something more than just playing it for myself and making CD-Rs for friends.  I finished Pattern Blue, made CD-Rs and released it in August of 2003. It finally sold out a couple months ago. That means that I officially sold a lot more than I ever expected I would. 

A lot of people scratched their heads and that was that, again I'm sure kids with good hair would really like it today.

Suddenly in December of 2003 I was invited to open for A Silver Mt Zion, This was strange and unexpected but before long things dried up. I didn't really know how to get shows so I spent the rest of 2004 just recording. Things picked up in and 2005 ended up as a fairly busy year. I released two eps And Climbing and Three Steps From A Valley

I even went on tour and made a bunch of new friends.

3. Tell me about your first attempts at solo recording.

I used to record direct to cassette using a pair of headphones as a microphone, tape keys down on a keyboard and just play guitar and a little synth.  I found one of those tapes not too long ago, it actually had some good parts to it, pretty psychedelic.

4. How do you write your songs? Are they improv sessions turned into re-playable pieces? Do you plan them all ahead?

I wouldn't even call the initial stage an improvisation, as that would infer that there's an actual goal involved.  I usually just sit around and play guitar and if something worthwhile comes out of it, then I'll record a rough version of it and over time just let it grow the way that's best for it.  The less expectatio, the better the result - at least that's been my experience.

Next: Challenges, Infuences and the Canadian scene

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