Bill Ryder-Jones has been a professional musician for exactly half his life. Growing up in Merseyside, north-west England, he was first signed when he was 16, but rose to prominence with British band The Coral and as a very, very handy guitarist (as Noel Gallagher has mentioned several times).
Indeed his skill for playing lead saw him temporarily join Arctic Monkeys during their AM tour. He has cemented his name as one of today’s great talents, soundtracking numerous short films and producing solo records with critical gravitas.
His 2011 album If… was an orchestral score designed to accompany the novel If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by postmodernist writer Italo Calvino, while 2013’s word-of-mouth pearl A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart, an album he recorded at home on an iMac just for himself, has created high expectations.
Constantly working, Ryder-Jones has also racked up production credits for other bands, including The Wytches, Hooton Tennis Club and the underrated group By The Sea, whose frontman Liam Power is also part of Ryder-Jones’s live set-up.
Last month saw the release of Ryder-Jones’s accomplished third album, West Kirby County Primary: with tracks Two to Birkenhead and Satellites preceding the album’s arrival, the sound on this record is louder and fuzzier in parts, but with the bare bones of sincerity he’s increasingly becoming well known for.
Think 1990s grunge via Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and Super Furry Animals, mashed with the influence of the land spanning the Dee Estuary.DiscographyA Leave Taking Soundtrack (2011)If… (2011)A Bad Wind Blows in My Heart (2013)Piggy Soundtrack (2013)West Kirby County Primary (2015)Extended playsHome Recordings (2012 - 2014)Home Recordings (Jan/Feb 2015)Home Recordings (May 2015) Home Recordings (April 2016)No Worst, There Is None (2016) based upon a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem
