ROAR by Clystre

ROAR – relentlessly overloaded ambient ruminations – is raw, immediate, and pure. And yet: foggy, gentle, and awkwardly soothing. It’s minimal and brutalist at once. A live performance that hadn’t even happened when ROAR came into being.

At its core: the Buchla Music Easel, guided by three deeply musical Chase Bliss pedals. No multitracking. No overdubs. Just a stereo signal. Unadorned, but full of character. Barely touched in post.

The Easel is a curious creature—its design is iconic, its interface tactile and inviting. You want to play it, patch it, twist it. Its sonic range spans from toy piano to palm-muted kalimba, from a slowly bowed cello in the lower register to softly struck mahogany blocks. On ROAR, these timbres unfold into swirling textures of loops and delays. Repeating melodies dissolve into themselves. Rhythms emerge from layers, not beats.

All tracks were born from live, improvised sessions. The goal: to explore how far this deceptively simple setup can go—and how versatile its results can sound. Just an Easel into Blooper, then Mood, then stereo reverb. That’s it.

Inspired by the likes of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Todd Barton, and especially Charles Cohen, Clystre navigates tone, texture, and timbre with intuition and restraint. ROAR is a study in limitation, and at the same time, an invitation to lose yourself in sound.

Sonic explorer, intuitive composer; sometimes ruling, often being ruled by a modular system

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