The short career of LA-based musician Ramsey is akin to a typhoon suddenly emerging to wreak havoc on the high seas, only to vanish into dormancy as quickly as it arrived; so far, at least.
While comparing anyone (save for Reuben Carter) to a tropical storm borders on cliché, the two million SoundCloud listeners caught in Hurricane Ramsey last year may attest to this current calm we are experiencing as temporary.
Ramsey releases her debut self-titled EP on Friday, Feb. 24 in what may constitute a whirlwind for the recording industry.
Whatever compelled a then 20-year-old Ramsey to post her homemade music to one of North America’s top music streaming websites (call it skill, sticktoitiveness, or that elusive “you know it when you see it" quality), SoundCloud listeners responded quickly – amassing over two million listens for the indie electronic artist in the four months between January and April of 2016.
Then, her meteoric rise hit pause.
Asked about how overnight success followed by a sudden popularity drop-off impacted her, Ramsey quips: “Yeah, it totally sucked. The thing about having everything on SoundCloud is that it is not distributed through anyone. I was just putting music out there. The music was doing really well, but at a time when we were getting a lot of attention from labels,” – Ramsey stops mid-sentence to clarify – “...not that I want a label, but they would reach out and one-by-one start to realise that it was ‘only SoundCloud shit.’”
Despite being an independent artist, Ramsey is apparently still bound by the music industry machine.
“We stopped releasing on SoundCloud because we want to do proper releases through Spotify and a distribution company. So [the last eight months have] been really weird. I’m hoping that when I do release the EP that all the waiting will pay off. Hopefully the release will get the proper traction across all of the platforms, and not just SoundCloud.”
Possessing a rare combination of talent, intelligence and mystique, Ramsey turns heads by incorporating impressive production chops with a flare for the alternative. While The Huffington Post compared the burgeoning artist’s music to Marilyn Manson, a superior description is a Tidal-era Fiona Apple meets Queen Akasha (the Queen of the Damned) plus the offspring of Feist and Björk.
Nobody (least of all this writer) would be surprised to one day learn that Ramsey rode her hair-raising voice all the way to the Carnegie Hall main stage; meanwhile, her production prowess is evident off the EP’s first track, “Pay”, and remains consistently profound throughout. Electronic elements, trip hop, experimental drum and bass and random effects (such as the unsheathing of a sword) are all woven together with an Arabic garnish on the six-track release, and the standout track, “See You Bleed”, is perhaps the clearest glimpse into the multi-layered production talent Ramsey lends to her extraordinary vocals.
“I usually start with a beat on the synth and then add bass and drums,” Ramsey explains. “Once I have a skeleton [song structure], I'll start writing and [eventually] record it. I'll play with the vocals to create more elements, go back and arrange it, and then fuck with for like a week straight; then there’s a song.”
Stage legs are another thing all together, though. When asked if she has played a lot of live shows, Ramsey briefly throws up the facade and then quickly concedes, “Yes, yeah. I have played about seven shows now”.
So not a tonne, really?
Ramsey laughs with sincerity: “Not at all.
“It's me, my mixing engineer, who is my electronic drummer, and my keyboardist doubles as my DJ."
A small army, ready to kick up a storm.
