A vague dream of the silver screen led Ryan Rickenbach to New York City. That and the near certainty of “white-hot instant success”, a fantasy carefully nurtured in the heart of suburban Maryland and quickly tempered on the streets of Manhattan.

Although a songwriter from his early teens, Rickenbach’s acting aspirations remained in the forefront until he landed a role in Folk City, a musical based on the legendary Greenwich Village music club. As he prepared for the role by performing at local dives, he soon found his ambitions resembling those of his character, a guitar-toting cowboy who believes himself to be the next Hank Williams. “There was a shift”, he recalls. “All I wanted to do was write songs.” As the show came to a close, Rickenbach found himself back at the same bars, no longer preparing for a role but instead for his debut release, Stasis EP.

Produced in only six days by Cass Dillon at Baby Studios in Baldwin, NY, the record is comprised of nimble melodies, lyrics both pensive and playful, and a distinctly resonant voice, capturing something Dillon calls both cerebral and raw – “a real, true singer-songwriter experience.”

Rickenbach is a student of The Great American Songbook and is drawn to the power of its simplicity: “I went through a period of listening to Elliott Smith obsessively and he always had a line, some little piece of burning coal that was so distilled and hot you felt he must have written the entire song just to say those words. That’s the kind of songwriting I’m interested in.”

Since finishing the record, Rickenbach has continued to compose new material and is already looking forward to a follow-up. “There’s more to come. I know that much.”