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).
Defining genres is complicated. 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, and many more captivated me when I was a teen. In young adulthood, I began to uncover the wondrous roots of the post-industrial that I so loved, such as Throbbing Gristle, Coil, and Einsturzende Neubauten. Since then, the amount of both industrial and post-industrial music continues to grow. I see new generations creating amazing art in this space, and still to this day make new discoveries of artists that I somehow missed.
What I have learned over the years is that industrial music’s experimental foundation and non-conventional approaches to music making continually transcend any box you try to place on the genre, yet it remains a style unto itself.
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. My songs are sometimes akin to dark ambient, while other songs are closer to dungeon synth, or even EBM on occasion. Genres can be limiting, but “post-industrial experimental music” is a way to acknowledge the influence of the many creative artists that have challenged and inspired me to make my own music over the years.