Ricky Eat Acid is the main project of musician/producer Sam Ray. Active under the name since 2009, Ray has released countless albums and singles, gleefully refusing to work along genre lines and instead crafting a tableau made up of everything from ambient/drone to candy colored, EDM-adjacent beats.
His 2013 record, 'Three Love Songs', elevated the project to prominence for the first time, with positive reviews from Pitchfork, Noisey and Spin to name a few. Album standout 'In My Dreams We're Almost Touching' was subsequently lauded across US media, earning recognition from New York Times to MTV.
Ray has proven himself to be an incredibly prolific artist, recording under multiple names and with multiple bands to create a dense and occasionally daunting catalogue. There's a now defunct indie-pop band, Julia Brown, and a recently reunited punk band, Teen Suicide, whose new album was released this year on Run For Cover Records.
While most artists working at his pace could be expected to run out of ideas sooner or later, Ray has only grown more ambitious. His new record, 'Talk To You Soon', his first since 'Three Love Songs' and debut for Terrible Records, is due in October, but he can be found talking about its progress and conception from as early as 2014 when he spoke to The Fader about new material.
Featuring string arrangements from composer & songwriter Owen Pallett, guest vocals from rising indie-rock artists Harmony Tividad, Spencer Radcliffe, and Caroline White, as well as a collaboration with experimental black metal band Wreck & Reference, it's not difficult to trace where Ray's other projects have left their mark on his main work.
That he's able to synthesize these different influences to create an album that's as jarring and discordant as it is euphoric and blissful is a testament to his unique vision & talent.