Directory
Rylan Gleave
Recorded live in 2021, Lawn Crypt explores the incredible vocal range of Leith-based composer and vocalist Rylan Gleave. His late breaking trans-masc voice goes from sonorous plainsong in the opening ‘Woo’d’ to a yearning falsetto reminiscent of Tilt-era Scott Walker via a strangled breathy rattle.
In Chemical Transit is an utterly singular work, the sort of daring project that sits at the forefront of art in both the musical and sociological sense... the listening experience is intensely candid and moving in a way I’ve not experienced before. This album is profound and important in addition to being truly pioneering, and it deserves to be widely heard.
Solo - Other
Instrumentation
- Rylan Gleave - Voice, piano, electronics
Repertoire
Rylan performs alt-/avant-folk music as a soloist, blending elements of classical, Baroque, rock, and experimental into his set. As All Men Unto Me, Rylan performs In Chemical Transit with an ensemble of voice, cello, piano, bass drum, and electronics. For solo sets, duration can be anywhere up to 1 hour and 15 minutes. For All Men Unto Me, a performance of In Chemical Transit is 52 minutes.
From Lawn Crypt:
Woo'd
Cradlesong
I know who killed me
Black gold / dust
What used to stand here
New songs:
Woodsman
Small haven
Tam has called
Arrangements:
I am stretched on your grave
My husband
Lær meg å kjenne
As All Men Unto Me
In Chemical Transit
Biography
Rylan is a composer and vocalist working in experimental and divergent fields. His work has been praised as “haunting" by The Herald, and “rapturous” by The Scotsman, who named him ‘One to Watch’ 2021, describing him as “one of the brightest lights in Scotland’s new music scene”. He enjoys working across disciplines, most notably in dramatic live contexts, and explores a range of dark folk (EP Lawn Crypt), jazz-punk (class-work ensemble), avant-garde metal (Ashenspire), chamber music, and orchestral compositions.
Under moniker All Men Unto Me, Rylan creates genre-merging work, with 2023 debut album release In Chemical Transit reviewed as ‘a brave, fascinating, and triumphant view of transition’ in The Wire. Taking Cherubino’s aria from Le Nozze di Figaro, Rylan wove together recordings of his voice from over a decade, pre- and during transition, critiquing the trouser role and his relationship with his former mezzo-soprano voice. He works with producer and musician Scott McLean across projects, developing the next All Men Unto Me album on Sound and Music’s New Voices programme, and within the same realms has played alongside artists such as Maud the moth, Burd Ellen, and Helen Money.
His work with Paraorchestra (as a member, Musician in Residence 2022-23, and Trustee) has included recording at Abbey Road Studios with Oliver Vibrans and Pulled By Magnets, where his performance of Scott Walker’s The Drift was premiered on Sky Arts. His orchestral commission Straylight for The Anatomy of The Orchestra: Drone Refractions premiered at Bristol Beacon as part of the Association of British Orchestras Conference, with two repeat sold-out shows at The Southbank Center.
Recent notable performances have been with Ashenspire at Supersonic Festival, Roadburn Festival, Islington Assembly Hall (Perpetual Flame Ministries), Soulcrusher, Damnation, Northern Winter Beat, Amplifest, and ArcTanGent, and with class-work ensemble at Leipziger Jazztage, Industriesalon Schöneweide, and Stadtgarten Köln. For compositions, Rylan has written recently for Hebrides Ensemble (The Night With…Festival), The Sunday Boys (setting text from The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven by Jo Clifford at Manchester Cathedral), and FormidAbility Opera (Song in Sign UK tour).
Rylan serves on the ABRSM’s Music Education Advisory Committee and as their Youth Voice Lead. He holds an MMus and BMus in Composition from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
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