San Vito Ryder’s Room Two Five sounds as if somebody checked into a cheap motel with a guitar, a cracked nerve, and enough unpaid emotional rent to keep the front desk suspicious until sunrise. Ryder, a London-based alternative artist raised between London and Cork, has been calling his zone “Black Drip Blues,” which is the sort of phrase you either roll your eyes at or accept because, frankly, what else do you call this stuff? It is rock ’n’ roll with the curtains drawn, post-punk boiled down to bare wire, gothic tension with a hangover and a faded, failing key card.
Ryder takes a grand idea – isolation turning into theatre – and keeps it mean, lean, and slightly absurd. There is a little Nick Cave in the theatrical stink, a little Birthday Party in the bad wiring, a little Smashing Pumpkins in the guitar abrasion, and maybe a little Nirvana in the cockroach skittering over the bathroom sink.
“The song came from thinking about the strange rituals people create when they’re isolated for too long,” he says. “In Room Two Five, the motel room becomes a stage where boredom, paranoia and self-invention all start bleeding together.”
That is the setup, and the track follows through with a pleasing lack of polite behaviour. Produced by Kristian Bell of The Wytches at The Hit Dungeon in Peterborough, Room Two Five has a dry, nasty kick, like a busted AC unit rattling beneath a window that looks out over a construction site. The guitars arrive with a burnt-chrome scrape, while Ryder’s raw, rough voice rides hard over the top.
The video, directed by Simon Hedges, strips the scene down further. Shot in black and white, it places Ryder in a sparse room, seated in a cane chair, performing straight into the camera with manic intensity. The monochrome look makes the performance feel blunt and almost embarrassingly direct, as if the clip has decided decoration would only get in the way of the twitch. Ryder stares, sings, and works the frame as though he is hosting a cabaret for one person – which could very well be himself after three days without proper sleep.
Room Two Five sharpens Ryder’s speakeasy punk pose into something more convincing: a song about artificial intimacy that has the good sense to sound slightly unwell. It turns a motel room into a cheap little chapel for boredom, delusion, and self-invention. Amen, check-out is at eleven.
Watch the video for Room Two Five below:
Listen to Room Two Five below:
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