Where the End Begins by Knathan Ryan

Nobody needs to be reminded that 2020 was an extremely dark year. I talked a lot about that darkness in my 2020 Bacon Top 31 posts, using the music of the year to carry larger diatribes about Covid lock-downs, Black Lives Matter protests, and facist dictatorships. At the end of the 2020 Bacon Top 31, in my review of the #1 album, Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud, I landed on a hopeful, positive note about the year ahead:

“Now, a month into 2021, I have a newly-lit hope that the perspective wrought by the [2020] will ultimately drive positive, lasting, unbreakable change. I once was blind, but now I see. Let’s work together to do great things with our new eyes.”

How naive I sounded, but such was the general feeling of early 2021! It was supposed to be the year where everything turned around, where the darkness subsided. But it just didn’t happen. Covid is still very much prevalent in our world, causing yet another years’ festivities to be dialed back or canceled altogether. The specter of the year-old end of the Trump presidency continues to generate mass amounts of anxiety about the future of our country. And while those responsible for the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty of murder, the recognition and punishment of racist acts on the whole continues to be carried out uncomfortably inconsistently.

If anything, the mass depression and general malaise of the world has taken on a new insidiousness. We’re pushing down those feelings, no longer wearing them on our sleeves. We’re burying them just below the surface, where they color our actions and the view of the world. We’ve replaced the concern of “this sucks right now but is temporary” with “it’s going to suck like this for a much longer time than originally expected, so we might as well get used to it.”

There are many ways I work to fight back the darkness and cope with the malaise. One big part of my defense remains listening to and discovering new music. It’s also a large part of my motivation in creating the Bacon Top 31 – to share in my discovery, in the hopes that it can help you, too. In the same turn, it’s helpful to me to hear of others’ struggles and difficulties, to hear how they’re coping (or not), and I hear a lot of those struggles in music is you know where to look. The man at #30 fits this description perfectly.

Knathan Ryan is a West Seattle-based singer/songwriter who doesn’t hold back. Speaking from personal experience (he’s one of my oldest friends in Seattle), he is nothing if not genuine, truly listening to you when you need to share, and sharing honestly and deeply when you want to listen. From his debut solo album (2003’s Vincible, minus the “K” in his name), the follow up 03 to TEN (#30 in 2010), to turns with his bands The Bruised Hearts Revue and The Silent Ks, Ryan has been producing heartfelt, thoughtful music for a very long time. Where the End Begins is his most personal, most “bare it all” album, and it’s also his best yet.

Ryan puts into song things we’re all feeling. Where the End Begins is full of difficulty – in carrying on, in maintaining relationships, in faith. “Anxiety”, in the middle of the album, hits particularly close to home in these covid-fueled times. And you can hear the struggle in songs like “Ain’t My Love?” (a version of which is featured in the video above) and “Sorry Just Don’t Cut it Anymore”, working hard to maintain relations during these trying, stuck-with-the-one-you’re-with times. But these songs aren’t sad, they’re upbeat and exciting and glorious. Ryan has a knack for taking a difficulty and twisting into a beautiful melody.

With songs firmly rooted in old-time country as well as indie rock, he keeps things close to the mic and approachable. The warble in his voice, not quite a yodel, is unmistakably his. The highlight for me is “Hey, Rooster!”, near the end of the album. That’s the song you’ll hear in the Radio Station playlist links below. When those horns kick in around 1:45, and then really take off at 2:07 – that is pure listening gold.

Yes, I’m biased in listening to these songs, as I’ve known the man behind these songs for over twenty years. But don’t let that stop you. Where the End Begins is a beautiful record, and you will enjoy it every bit as much as I do.

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31. Private Space by Durand Jones & The Indications

There are many ways to listen to the 2021 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as the countdown is completed!

Full Album
All albums in their entirety.

Radio Station
A single song selection pulled from each album.

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