Formerly producing under his Asound moniker, Cleveland-based producer Matthew Ryals has released his lush debut album We Can Make The Ride Better For Everyone under his own name via his Behind Glass imprint. Packed with numerous silken layers, the eight-track LP is a sparse and sweet journey into pop and synthesis. Although it may not sound like it, Ryals crafted his entire LP using his laptop. “For live shows, I use quite a bit of analogue gear, but at the time of making this album I had nothing” explains Ryals. “The entire LP is made on soft-synths that come bundled in Logic Pro.”

To help celebrate this phenomenal release, Ryals has offered up the album’s title track as one of today’s XLR8R downloads. Building with care and precision, Ryals piles one soft-synth on top of another, making dense droning soundscapes that sit on top of and intricate, hissing drum arrangement.

Ryals gave XLR8R some further insight regarding the inspiration behind the title-track, saying: “A lot of tracks of mine have their beginnings in wanting to try out particular technical ideas in the studio. With this track, I was inspired by a James Holden interview discussing his first LP to stick multiple compressors all over everything, which had this cool effect on the three synths allowing different ones to emerge to the top at different moments. They kind of bubble in and out, making room for each other in this expressive manner.”

You can download “We Can Make The Ride Better For Everyone” below via WeTransfer.

We Could Make the Ride Better for Everyone