Eddy Lee Ryder (@eddyleeryder, Liz Brennan) is a Woodstock, New York-based singer-songwriter. Not too long ago, she released her long-awaited full-length debut album, “Sweet Delusions.” The project contains synthesizing timeless songcraft, dramatic introspection, and infinite pop smarts to create a breathtaking song cycle of apocalyptic romance and anxious regret, badly broken hearts, and wishful hope for the future.
Eddy Lee Ryder – “Highwaymen” single
Songs like “Highwaymen” and the deceptively optimistic title track see Ryder fusing chanson and country, indie and standards, into her own strain of modernist pop Americana, all informed by her distinctively wry sense of humor and classic rock spirit. That creative capriciousness resonates throughout the album, Ryder’s witty but deeply reflective songwriting offering up keenly detailed snapshots of secret intimacies, small cruelties, and a relationship gone south.
Quirky and charming while still precise and powerfully personal, “Sweet Delusions” reveals Eddy Lee Ryder as a one-of-a-kind new artist, her unabashed heartache and beguiling humor completely her own yet as identifiable and real as any of our own.
“I want my music to carry multiple emotions, just like every experience,” Ryder says. “Nostalgia, absurdity, humor, and sorrow.”
Eddy Lee Ryder – “Smoke and Mirrors”
Having earned applause for her sadly beautiful portraits of love and life on the margins, with songs like “Smoke and Mirrors” featured in the cult hit horror film “Terrifier 2,” Ryder is set to work on her long-brewing debut album in 2022. Though her plan was to record with producer Dave Cerminara (Father John Misty, Weyes Blood) at his studio in Los Angeles, at the last moment, her beloved 20-year-old cat was diagnosed with a rare form of feline cancer, prompting Cerminara to instead join her at the Outlier Inn, a “small charming studio” on a bucolic 12-acre property in New York’s southern Catskill Mountains.
Ryder eventually made it to Los Angeles for a second round of recording with Cerminara in 2023. Both sessions saw her armed with a cache of songs inspired by “an extremely bad ending with someone who was my best friend. I didn’t even know it was possible to have that bad of an ending.”
“We were so drawn to each other,” says Ryder. “My gut feeling was this was going to end in absolute disaster, but I couldn’t help but go full force into that disaster. I kept picturing us driving off a cliff like “Thelma and Louise,” going down in adventure, having a good run, but ultimately it was going to be me on my own, back on the open road.”
Eddy Lee Ryder
Compounded by quarantine, Ryder’s existential turmoil forced her to write from the heart rather than the head, arriving at the sweet spot between those two aspects of her self-described “eccentric” persona, often while strumming her acoustic guitar among friends and multiple bottles of wine.
“It’s a wasted opportunity,” says Ryder, “if you have had that level of an experience, that kind of emotional odyssey, and nothing comes out of it.”
Once Ryder hit the studio, her apocalyptic romanticism naturally led to the album’s “accidental country” sound, a rhinestone-flecked bed of twangy guitars, languid bass, and irresistible melodies created with accompaniment from longtime Father John Misty drummer/musical director Dan Bailey, multi-instrumentalist Daniel Chae (Zach Bryan, Kacey Musgraves), and keyboardists Todd Caldwell (Crosby, Stills & Nash, James Taylor) and Dave Shephard, along with harmonies and other help from NYC friends like Rebecca Haviland and pianist Abby Payne.
“Once we acknowledged, ‘Okay, this is a breakup album,’ it all went a little bit country,” Ryder says, “because that’s what a bad breakup does to you. You end up a little bit country.”
Penned and performed with uncommon brio and invention, “Sweet Delusions” sees Ryder musing on lust, longing, and lost love across shimmering choruses and a vertiginous undercurrent of contemplative melancholy, turning her raw pain into expertly wrought anthems that simultaneously hearken back to both truck stop jukeboxes and glittering art deco cafés.
Despite her love of guise and character, the clear through line that unifies Ryder’s still evolving body of work is her storyteller’s gift for cutting to the quick of her own complex, unconventional nature. Impossible to pigeonhole, with “Sweet Delusions,” Eddy Lee Ryder proudly avoids being fitted into any quickly particular category or genre, her creative adventurousness and tongue-in-cheek humor distinctly and undeniably her own.
Download Eddy Lee Ryder’s “Sweet Delusions” album
We recommend adding songs from Eddy Lee Ryder’s “Sweet Delusions” album to your favorite pop-rock playlist. We would love to hear your thoughts! Please comment below and let us know how this album made you feel. Remember, your feedback helps us bring you more of the music you love. As always, thanks for reading another great article on Bong Mines Entertainment. We’re your go-to source for new music and positive entertainment news. Remember, (P)ositive (E)nergy (A)lways (C)reates (E)levation—P.E.A.C.E.
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