Ryan Pollie and the Academy of Light

Ryan Pollie and the Academy of Light

Ryan Pollie can’t stop experimenting. It was only a matter of time until a mid-30s Pollie entered the world of ambient tape loops. His latest endeavor, The Fridge, is a collection of hand-crafted tape loops mixed live off of a Tascam Portastudio 4 track to the computer. Featuring live performances by Teddy Grossman, Junior Mesa, and Special/Sexy/Sleazy, The Fridge was created in about two weeks, mixed with Tyler Karmen at 64 Sound and mastered for release by Rob Dobson. Performed live at Gold Diggers in Los Angeles, drums and saxophone were layered onto the loops blasting out of speakers. In the tradition of William Basinski and Brian Eno, the loops were created as an exploration into the unknown. Pollie started each piece with a simple phrase or passage and built on it from there, often capturing the exact opposite of what he’d hoped. “In recording this way, you can never predict what is going to fly from the air to the magnetic tape, and the timing is hard to get down,” he shared. “The medium is limiting but freeing, compositionally challenging, and also novel to me. It was a beautiful experience to let go of intention in this way and create something ‘by accident’.” Following The Museum at the End of Time (Perpetual Doom, 2020), The Fridge is Pollie’s second ambient work meant to induce a sense of calm. In that vein, Pollie and frequent collaborator Spencer Hoffman conceived a film to be screened in 2023.