Sound Psychologist shares some of his most influential records

Young talent from Michigan, Thomas Ryan describes himself as an electronic experimental musical psychologist and runs Smallbrain Records label.

In this occasion, Sound Psychologist shares some of the tracks that have inspired him through his career.

1. Bowery Electric –  Beat 

“This track was the main inspiration for ‘Words are just noise’. The repeated phrase ‘words are just noise, words are only noise’. really got to my head and made me think, this also kinda kicked some spice into the albums sonic aesthetic!”

2. J Dilla – Detroit Madness

“This song by Dilla really just kinda stuck with me, the beats are very human and that feeling of human infused music is big to me”.

3. Prefuse 73 – Point to B

“Started listening to P73 more during the album, and the sliced vocals really attracted me. You can slightly hear some of this in Miko”.

4. Brian Eno – 1/2

“The sound from this one, with the super calming enviroment of the song, really had an impact with ‘For Sleepy Evenings0′”

5. John Adams- Shaker Loops


“Directly influenced car horn pentet”.

6. : Penderecki – Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima


“This track was for sure a big influence in my music, because before I started production of the album I went on a music diet and listened to this song exclusively for about 2 weeks to purge any stuff I had from the last album; Penderecki is good at that haha”.

7. Aphex Twin – Alberto Balsam


“The sampling Mr.James uses is very cool, I saw this as a concept to improve on and would love to talk to him about experimenting more with samplers”.

8. Jeremy Soule – Skyrim Soundtrack


“This was just an album I listened to a lot at the time, its surprisingly really amazing ambient music. Would recommend it to anyone”.

9. Stereolab – Miss Modular


“This one is actually a secret, but ill tell that it is quite evident in ‘E'”

10. Animal Collective – My Girls

“This was pretty influential. I listened to this while mowing the lawn and soldering synths whenever I’m not making music! The hazy sounds in it are great!”