ALBERTA MUSICIAN RYLAND MORANZ SHARES 1ST SINGLE FROM NEW ALBUM, BETTER/WORSE
Alberta-based singer-songwriter Ryland Moranz shares his new single/video “When I’m Gone” out now on all digital streaming platforms via Tonic Records.
“When I’m Gone” is the lead single from Ryland’s new album Better/Worse, set for release later this year. Recorded by John Raham at Barnhouse Studios in Qualicum, BC, and produced by Leeroy Stagger, the easygoing folk-country track tackles the dark subject matter with a positive attitude, encouraging us to live in the moment.
“‘When I’m Gone’ is my existential dread song, although it’s more optimistic than that may sound,” says Ryland. “When I wrote it I was thinking a lot about the world and our place in it and it occurred to me that most folks ride a binary opinion that’s either fate based or fate averse. But if you look out into nature, you see nothing is really like that. I wanted to write something that embraced the entropy of the human condition; something that showcased how, even if you’re not meant to be anywhere, where you are is where you’re meant to be, even if it’s just for a moment. Because nothing lasts forever, but nothing is truly forgotten, either.”
The video for “When I’m Gone” is a composite of 35mm projections from the silent film era using films that are in the public domain. The main films used are: Nosferatu, The Cabinet of DR Caligari, The Pawn Shop, Journey to the Moon, and Fantasmagorie.
Says Ryland:
“The purpose of using these films was to support the song’s theme by creating a living and breathing estuary of real life and recorded memory. To showcase how all we have is the moment, but the moment is never just the now. It’s everything we’ve experienced up until now.”
A folk/bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter from Lethbridge, Alberta, Ryland’s highly anticipated forthcoming album, Better/Worse, will be released through Tonic Records later this year. The album takes an earnest snapshot of a world emerging from the brink, or rather, from one brink to another. A spiritual successor to Ryland’s acclaimed 2021 offering XO, 1945, Better/Worse turns the focus from where we have been to where we may be going.