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Artist
Ryan Costello
12+ albums
about
Ryan Costello has had a wide range of experiences to draw on when crafting his first solo album - agricultural development worker in Afghanistan, social worker with foster children in Florida, lead singer of inde-folk band The OaKs, and his current graduate studies in soil science and organic agriculture at Oregon State university. But he's also dug deep into his own self, making this at once his most personal album yet. He writes candidly about fighting with the darkest parts of himself, of the spiritual longings that well up on windy autumn nights, and about the expansive beauty he's encountered during days working in the wide open fields in Afghanistan and Oregon. After The Fire is built on a foundation of folk-based songwriting in the tradition of 1970's Paul Simon and Donovan solo albums, weaving in the jazz influence of Ahmad Jamal and the rythmic soul of Bill Withers, with the minimalistic electronic flourishes of Air and Tortoise. Featuring the explosive drumming of The OaKs' Matthew Antolick as well as the Paul Desmond influenced horns of Greg Willson, After The Fire also finds Costello playing more than 12 different instruments including resonator slide, hollowbody jazz electric guitar and Wurlitzer electric piano. The title "After The Fire" speaks to the brokenness of the human condition and the potential for re-growth - what it means to allow one's self to be made new in mind and heart. The tracks on After The Fire surge forward in much the same way, like green
