The Third Eye

The Third Eye hasn’t covered many musicians who embrace poetry in their music as much as Rory McBride. McBride creates psychedelic folk rock characterized by blues and spiritual music, and it’s all infused by his love and deep study of poetic language. He released a new EP, Sonic Lullaby, over the summer (June 2nd) with three short, gorgeous tracks that you can tell are influenced by the likes of Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Jim Morrison.

McBride was raised in rural Illinois, and he says the “cultural desert of my childhood made me focus on artistic pursuits which served as my window to the rest of the world.” He eventually saw the world, though, as most of his twenties were focused on a multidisciplinary career in visual arts with stops in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. However, the day he wrote his first song was a turning point.

“The guitar was no longer an instrument; it was a portal to an all-encompassing artistic expression, and I felt I had no choice but to reach for a new identity and assume a new name and style,” McBride says.

During the pandemic, he left behind the sprawling urban metropolises of his twenties and returned to nature, spending time reading and writing poetry and laying the groundwork for a debut LP. He mostly lived off the grid in southwestern Wisconsin and in the backwoods of Amish farms.

He took a deep dive into the classics, and he says during his studies, he was given “the golden keys into the vaults of cadence, rhythm, rhyme, and aesthetics of language itself.” Rory’s initial musical output was naturally uncomplicated and hypnotic and influenced by Jim Morrison and John Lennon, focusing on the tightness of lyrical images and stylistic maneuvering like early Dylan.

His new EP, Sonic Lullaby, starts with “The Azure King,” an enchanting and trippy folk ballad where Rory sings softly and includes spoken-word lyrical poetry. Indeed, the spoken word sections call Jim Morrison to mind, but in a less aggressive form than The Lizard King. For some reason, the aesthetic and feel of “The Azure King” also reminded me of the terrific 2021 film, The Green Knight. The Green Knight re-told an Arthurian legend uniquely and experimentally, and “The Azure King” conjures the same feeling of re-telling a medieval fantasy in a modernly mystical way. But maybe that’s just me.

The other two tracks are very short, less than two minutes long. “Sonic Lullaby” lives up to its name and is sweet, folksy, and good for bedtime. “Stay Blue” is another short, hypnotic folk track with soothing sounds. “Stay Blue” pairs with “The Azure King” to create a blue-themed set of songs; I get the impression it was intentional. The cover art for Sonic Lullaby is a piece of blue-hued art in the center surrounded by a blue sky, and other assorted links to Rory’s EPK and website also prominently feature blue designs. In color psychology, blue provokes calm feelings, so the choice of color matches the sounds of the EP and Rory’s music in general.

Rory hasn’t released much music since a 2021 debut single called “The Soft Mirage.” And Sonic Lullaby only consists of three short songs, so there’s not a tremendous amount of output. What he has released so far, though, all makes for lovely listening. Along with the music, Rory has a poetry collection on his website called Caveat Emptor, and he’s also released some 16mm, Sixties-styled video vignettes to accompany the poems.

On his beautifully designed website, you can find all of Rory’s multidisciplinary artwork, including the music. His bio hints at the release of a full-length record, though I’m unsure when that may come. Based on Sonic Lullaby, the full-length will likely be a great piece of psychedelic folk.

Support Rory McBride by finding him on Bandcamp or his official website.

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