Umbra Scryer is a mostly solo music project by Ryan Spellman. All tracks are born from free-flow sessions using hardware synthesizers, drum machines, and other physical instruments.
It is a step into inner landscapes; a decompression chamber for the mind. Encouragement to wander through uncharted territories with no destination in sight. Music to daydream to.
This website is simply a musical journal of sorts that doubles as an easy reference point to share my work with others. I am not a big proponent of the social media game. Since I am privileged with the opportunity to make my music for the sake of making it without concern of a return on investment, I just collect my work here for the most part (as well as on bandcamp).
Industrial music’s experimental foundation and non-conventional approaches continually transcend any box you try to place on the genre, yet it remains a broad reaching style unto itself, ever growing in both catalog and complexity.
I am an “elder millennial” that grew up listening to a wide range of post-industrial music during my formative years. The likes of early Ministry, MLWTTKK, Nine Inch Nails, Electric Hellfire Club, Praga Kahn, Front Line Assembly, and much more captivated me when I was a teen. In young adulthood, I began to uncover the expansive roots of the post-industrial that I so loved. Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Einsturzende Neubauten, Legendary Pink Dots, and so many others pushed my boundaries in exciting ways.
All of that to say that I choose to call my work simply “post-industrial experimental” because it is the widest umbrella it all fits within while acknowledging the great works that have influenced, inspired, and challenged me to make music of my own. It is phenomenal to see new generations creating amazing art in this broad aesthetic, not to mention that after all these years I still make an occasional new discovery that I somehow missed along the way.