In June: Ryan Kennedy introduces Horsebeach
Arriving seemingly from nowhere, then selling out the first pressing of his LP, Horsebeach is the project of one Ryan Kennedy, combining a sunny stateside lilt with a moodier Mancunian worldview to attractive effect. He tells the story of his debut record
Away from the constant chatter and search for Manchester’s most exciting new band, Ryan Kennedy has been slowly but surely crafting the sound of Horsebeach, originally an unambitious – albeit fulfilling – one-man project whose debut self-titled album has quickly blossomed into one of the sleeper hits of the year. Heavily indebted to the breezy US contemporary rock of Real Estate and Ducktails – indeed, Kennedy references both projects, fronted by Matt Mondanile, as the real arrival point for his music – it nonetheless possesses, from its drizzly cover art to its more dour moments, a rainy-day quality that might only have emerged from Manchester.
“A lot of people have said that is has that sunny, Brooklyn style with the damp of Manchester,” Kennedy admits. “And a lot of people have also asked me what influenced me growing up.” (It's just over a month since the album debuted, selling out a limited run of copies, and the 23-year-old has already fielded a plethora of interview questions on an international scale.)
“The first Ducktails record, I heard that and thought, ‘it’s just some guy with a cassette in his room,'” he says. “And Real Estate, the way their guitars intertwine. Our instrumental is called June in reference to Real Estate’s April’s Song. It’s a way of paying subtle homage to it.”
The homage itself may not be so subtle, but Kennedy captures a similar wistfulness with at least equal sincerity and, as a DIY album (“I just did it for myself, really,” he shrugs), Horsebeach is imbued with a level of real, warm detail. What’s more, it doesn’t chime with the current, noisier end of Manchester’s local band scene.
“The initial recordings are me trying to sing without anyone hearing me” – Ryan Kennedy
“As I was recording I was watching that scene, or at least I noted it as I was developing it. There was this lo-fi, fuzzy DIY stuff around Manchester. And this is so clean, so I never really felt a part of that stuff.” Far from a deliberate contrarian, Kennedy instead lives a life absorbed in music. Locking himself away for a two-week stretch, the recording of the LP was a personal and fairly intense process – and when not expanding his vision for Horsebeach, he can be found behind the counter at Piccadilly Records, sifting, selling and recommending. Perceived as a dream job by many musicians, does the literal and audible volume of music casually observed on shift ever interrupt his own creative process?
“If I'm deep in the process of writing a song I'll try to keep listening to new music at a minimum, otherwise I start to lose direction slightly,” he says. “Sometimes I'll abandon songs halfway through because I'll hear something that completely changes the way I feel about my writing process. It's quite fragile.”
Taking his annual leave from the shop to focus exclusively on the project proved to be the answer for Kennedy, free for a short time from the dub techno, jangly indie reissues and anything else from the store's eclectic soundtrack. “I bought a tape-to-tape machine and just recorded," he explains. “I just wrote it all down and went for it. I decided to ditch computers, but the rest of it is all just going into my tape deck. I locked myself in a room, to focus; I get pretty intensely passionate about it.”
If Horsebeach has proved a pleasant surprise for newfound fans, the process of making the LP proved similarly enlightening for Kennedy himself, especially in regards to his distinctive, unmannered vocal delivery. Although, as with much of the record, his vocals are often skilfully drenched in reverb and other effects, the biggest change is in octaves. “Horsebeach wasn’t set up for me to be the vocalist,” he says. “The first material was recorded while I was at university in Salford, so the walls were paper thin. The initial recordings are me trying to sing without anyone hearing me.”
Now armed with extra decibels, Horsebeach have expanded to fulfil the demands of a live setup; the band were personally invited to play at Primavera’s winter festival, Club Primavera, in Barcelona this November. Their drummer, Matt Booth, has a relationship with Kennedy stretching back a number of years and into a real grab bag of musical endeavours, some far removed from the easy going nature of Horsebeach. “We did a thing called LEDC, which was really sleazy electro. That was probably the worst of them,” Kennedy recalls.
“I do like playing with a full band. I did look at looping it all, but it’s just nice to be onstage with other people, much as I also like being alone,” he muses. That aloneness is a trait that’s arguably audible in the record’s relatively intimate feel. However, only the lyrics of two of the album’s ten tracks reflect any aspect of Kennedy’s own life. A heartfelt song about his girlfriend, at first glance ill-advisedly titled Dull, is a memorable, personal paean telling of 'bodies intertwined hopelessly,' and cites poet W.B. Yeats as an influence. “I always struggle with lyrics,” he admits. “I can write melodies for days, but I really have to go to town on lyrics.”
Kennedy feels “lucky to be from Manchester,” but there’s mercifully little to no posturing northern grit or Morrissey-lite misery on record. Just as he notes that his musical idols are never less than delighted to be playing in his postcode, is there an air of escapism to Horsebeach that has ensured its emptying from the shelves of his workplace at such a pace? Is it a loved-up record?
“No, I’d say it wasn’t,” reckons Kennedy. “It’s funny that you mention escapism, because escapism is a great way to escape morbid reality, but the problem is, my fantasies themselves are a morbid reality. It’s difficult to conjure up anything particularly fantastical in Manchester.” With a manager now in tow, the recent second pressing of the record finally meeting demand, more dates in the works and label interest beyond the berms of Manchester, you’d imagine many would disagree with this claim – still, Kennedy is keen not to contrive anything.
“I’m currently recording new stuff,” he reveals. “It’s not coming easy at the minute, because I have much more to do now the band is going more seriously, whereas previously there was no expectation.” As his heroes might say: take it Easy.