Ryan O'Reilly - “To Be Cruel”

Photo: Kai Leicafeld

My early morning commute often consists of a playlist that I’ve been building for the past few years and two of its songs are Flyte’s “Losing You” and “Everyone’s a Winner.” So when we received Ryan O’Reilly’s “To Be Cruel” and saw that it was a collaboration with Flyte’s frontman Will Taylor, I dropped everything and played it on a loop for a couple hours.

An interesting thing to note about O’Reilly’s track is that it’s the flip side of Flyte’s “Tying To Break Your Heart,” with a reversed role and “an ambiguity and desperation in the narrator as he narrates his complicated relationship.” And although this track falls inside of the indie folk category, it is also worth pointing out this genre’s vastness, especially since this is more upbeat than our usual brand of heartfelt tunes.

“To Be Cruel” begins as though it belongs on Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, with a booming beat and a bass line that inches ever-so-delightfully towards being overdriven. This a rare case where the acoustic guitar actually falls into the background of the rhythm section, effortlessly blending with this fantastic groove. And the vocals, as remarkable and original as they are, bear some resemblance to the aforementioned Wilco record– they have that sweet, vintage vibe, as though they were captured by a tube mic, long before autotune ever existed. There’s a slight Beatles feel here as well and this track is bouncy enough to fill a dance floor, but emotional enough to fill your car as you drive alone– which is exactly where I’ll be hearing it every morning on the way to work.

-TM