This is the home of Brighton singer, multi-instrumentalist and producer christopher rye. You need FLASH to hear the songs and to view this site. Watch his LIVE VIDEO: Click the red button below.

The jukebox below features a random selection from christopher's albums 'The Flipside of christopher rye' and 'The Catch in christopher rye' (due January 2012), including Big Sky! Keep Turning and Rainy Night Sunday, both featured by Tom Robinson on BBC6music. Tom described the latter as "a classic" and "a favourite of the show". The jukebox contains over 50 songs, including hit demo The Shadow Man.

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"Joe Meek shall inherit the earth...." (christopher rye)
Home is where the dark is: Brighton, UK-based christopher rye is a singer/songwriter, stage performer, multi-instrumentalist and producer, whose work fuses the Byronic with the electronic, retro with electro, and synthpop with space rock, dance beats and wall-of-sound guitars.

Often associated with atmospheric electro, in fact christopher is a musical shapeshifter whose music takes unexpected twists and experimental turns, from artrock and industrial dreamscapes to pop, hardcore house, rock guitar workouts, chillout and even soul. All, somehow, co-exist in ryeWorld as he takes on different musical personas and fills them with his trademark swirling, nocturnal atmosphere. He calls the results 'kinetic music'.

Although a very English musician, christopher likens his music to New York at night and says anything that can exist in New York has a home in his music — and, it's true, in that city the Gothic, the modern, the hip and the insane sit side by side on Manhattan island. There is nothing more 'rye' than Central Park on a rainy autumn night.

• Some of his tracks — including Oberammergau, Reptile, Keep it Dark!, and From the Golden Light — feature Chinese rock band Taikonauts, with whom he collaborates over the Internet. Taikonauts keep their work secret from the Chinese authorities. Click the red 'c-star' logo, right, for more on the band.

christopher's songs are gaining attention across the internet, attracting airplay on BBC6music, where Tom Robinson has been a champion, and other stations — plus interest from movie makers and even US advertising agencies.

Leave the jukebox playing and take a moonlit journey through ryeWorld and meet the strange characters who inhabit it. This is life-affirming music for outsiders (by choice and inclination). The song Et tu, Babe? is christopher's manifesto.
 
If you appreciate intelligent pop In the esoteric tradition of Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and David Bowie, or the soundscapes of Scott Walker, Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins, Trent Reznor, Pink Floyd, early Roxy Music and the Blue Nile, then part of you probably already lives in ryeWorld. christopher is also a very theatrical performer, and christopher live is a multimedia experience – click the Live Video button for concert clips.

For some, his work also recalls post-punk, romantic electro, such as Depeche Mode, Tubeway Army, The Cure, Freur, Joy Division, Tuxedomoon and Japan. Some also detect the influence of 90s dance acts, such as Massive Attack, Underworld, Chemical Brothers and Leftfield, or the spirit of bands such as Placebo and Suede.

christopher himself is secretive, but professes a love for Brian Wilson and the late, great Joe Meek... whose DIY boffin approach to music christopher certainly shares in his home studio.

A polymath and an intuitive musician, christopher writes, plays and sings most of the songs himself, but he has collaborated on some tracks with singers Emily Swift Jones, Martha Evatt, Jill Draper (Basement Jaxx), Brighton singer/wongwriter Julia F (Julia Fitness) and Happy Hardcore dance diva Lisa Abbott.

christopher famously works incredibly quickly, often writing, recording, producing and mastering a track in a day. He has written nearly 400 songs, only a random selection of which appear on here.

christopher's Big Sky! Keep Turning and Rainy Night Sunday have both been played extensively on the 'BBC Introducing' show with Tom Robinson on BBC6music (available online).

In an email Tom described Rainy Night Sunday as "fucking gorgeous" and on air he said "ten out of ten", comparing it with the Blue Nile. He later described it as a "longstanding favourite of this show" and, most recently, as "the classic Rainy Night Sunday".

• As guitarist, christopher also plays lead guitar for the talented singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julia Fitness, a fellow member of the Brighton music scene (a role he previously played in her band Adhora). Stand by for news on joint shows.

Find out why the UK's christopher rye is making waves across a whole range of music sites, especially in the US, and why he has garnered dozens of awards on garageband.com, including several TRACK OF THE WEEK and TRACK OF THE DAY picks.

christopher was a fixture in the top 20 artists on Stereofame.com throughout 2008-09, and remains one of the most popular Electronic artists on that community, which hosts tens of thousands of acts.

In January 2008, christopher's primitive demo The Shadow Man  topped the Electronic chart at Amiestreet.com for one whole month, while the rest of the top 10 in the Electronic chart were all ryeTunes.

Cometh the hour, cometh The Shadow Man...

"The darkest part of the sky is the bluest." (christopher rye).

"Those stolen nights of wonder fall like dust behind us now." (christopher rye)

Welcome to christopherrye.com. Home is where the dark is.

Chris Middleton
• For enquiries about commissions, synch rights or advertising usage, please click the Contact christopher button, below.

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