Cyrus R.O. has been picking away at his backlog of material. Like every artist, he’s got more than a few songs tucked away in the attic – old demos that weren’t quite ready to see the light of day for whatever reason. And since only Prince can be Prince, Cyrus has chosen to deal with that particular problem long before his own passing, rather than letting them collect dust in a secret vault.
“Walked In” is the first teaser from Cyrus R.O.’s newest project. He took advantage of the 2020 lockdown to begin combing through the set of demos which were originally intended to make up the debut record of his previous group, the Cyrus R.O. Quartet.
Just a few months from his last album, DECONVOLUTION, Cyrus says that he’s been able to apply some new skills to the old demos and going through them one-by-one he’s been able to several up to a release-ready status.
“Those songs represent the various phases I had gone through over the first years of my musical life, learning to write songs and produce music,” says Cyrus. “In that way, this material is more representative of the typical debut record for a young artist such as myself than DECONVOLUTION, which was more of a niche project written over a short period of time.”
Despite the heavy ’90s sounds reminiscent of alt-rock bands (we’re hearing big nods to Stone Temple Pilots) Cyrus explains that “Walked In” was written during the for far more recent summer of 2016 from a tiny room in a boarding house of 17 people.
“I was quite young at the time, 18 years old, and that summer was very hot and lonely, but also quite exciting because it was my first time living alone in a new city,” says Cyrus. “I think that unique combination of youthful energy and melancholy shaped the aesthetic of this track.”
The track bounces between discord and distraction, interrupting a bleak landscape with the appearance of the proverbial “she”. In the fine tradition of ’90s alt-rock, however, the lyrics of “Walked In” paints more of an abstract picture than any nail-on-the-head narrative. Even if you can’t distill the meaning from it, there are still plenty of earhooks to enjoy.
Cyrus says that the single is just the first teaser for several releases, with a new video coming every month, as he documents the process. The entire project is expected to be released in its entirety by early 2021.