Having cut their teeth as part of Avi Buffalo, Seattle-based drummer Sheridan Riley has played in a multitude of bands, from Drug Cabin and John Mitchell Quartet to their current position in ALVVAYS. But alongside this Riley is developing a career under their own name, drawing on all their prior experience to create genre-bending sonic collages which encompass everything from field recorded ambient soundscapes to tensely chaotic jazz.
Following 2020’s Music For 18 Vacuumers, Sheridan Riley has returned with Participant, a brand new EP out via Ruination Record Co. which continues to test the limits of their inventive style. A work solo in name but not in nature, with a wide array of musicians and artists lending their talents to provide Riley a rich source of material to draw from and arrange. Opener ‘Embody’ uses Wayne Horvitz’s piano, Neil Welch’s tenor sax and cello from Lori Goldston to build a detailed, nimble soundscape. An elaborate arrangement both anxious and hyperactive, like a sonic representation of a city’s perpetual movement, where a thousand mundane elements coalesce into something far beyond the sum of its parts. This is reinforced by the spoken word segments from Kam Wolf, Natasha El-Sergany, Sarah McCrorey, Ronan Delisle and Riley themselves, and captured in a video, directed, shot, and edited by media artist and experimental filmmaker Colby Richardson.
A sprawling contemplation of life and loss and time, ‘Glow’ sees piano and trombone spiral off from Riley’s percussive baseline, spoken word by Cassandra Jenkins, Ysa Díaz and Wyatt Thomas drifting in and out like some conversation at once wholly open and entirely mysterious. The song is again supported and furthered by a suitably evocative video, this time by V Haddad.
The portentous rumble hanging over ‘Try It’ offers an ominous air, the spoken word samples repeating haphazardly as though reality has come apart in some manner and things have turned strange. The mood points toward some chaotic climatic collapse, something which never arrives. The air clears for a while, a brighter violin section heralding a newfound clarity, even if the mood never quite straightens out. And it turns out the chaotic crescendo isn’t so much absent but delayed, with closer ‘It Did the Trick’ providing the harshest, most tumultuous arrangement on the record. The spoken samples retain their everyday quality, but the drums accelerate with a sense of building pressure, the entire EP channelled into a sharp point.
Participant is out now via Ruination Record Co. and you can get it from Bandcamp.
