B-Side Guys

From the dimly lit soundboards of DC’s premier venues to his personal recording sanctuary, Keegan Del Rio has absorbed the physics of sound from every angle. This intimate knowledge of audio architecture manifests brilliantly in “Dwelling,” where technical precision meets psychedelic abandon in a masterful display of self-production.

The double drum approach creates a fascinating rhythmic labyrinth, with complementary patterns that interlock and diverge like a musical Escher drawing. It’s a bold choice that could have resulted in percussive chaos, but Del Rio’s experience behind the mixing desk ensures each hit finds its proper pocket in the sonic spectrum.

Mat Leffler-Schulman’s mastering touch – known for his work with Beach House and Future Islands – provides the final polish, but the raw materials here are already exceptional. The fuzzy guitars don’t simply distort; they pixelate and reform, creating textural landscapes that reflect the song’s emotional terrain of processing and progress.

Recording and mixing one’s own material can often lead to either sterile perfectionism or muddy self-indulgence. Del Rio threads this needle with remarkable finesse, allowing just enough grit and spontaneity to keep the track breathing while maintaining the structural integrity that comes from countless nights fine-tuning live sound at DC’s venues.

The psychedelic elements serve as more than mere aesthetic choice – they function as emotional metaphor. Just as the mind generates surreal imagery during periods of stress or transformation, the song’s neo-psychedelic flourishes paint a portrait of consciousness in flux, struggling with the weight of moving forward while perpetually looking back.

What sets “Dwelling” apart from typical psychedelic fare is its sense of purpose. Each sonic exploration feels essential to the narrative, never wandering into self-indulgent territory. The fuzzy guitar frequencies don’t obscure the message; they amplify it, creating a physical representation of memory’s distorting effect on past experiences.

Del Rio’s background in live sound engineering reveals itself in subtle ways throughout the mix. The spatial awareness, the careful attention to frequency competition, and the dynamic balance between instruments all speak to countless hours spent crafting perfect live mixes. Here, those skills transfer seamlessly to the studio environment, creating a recording that feels both intimate and expansive.

The title “Dwelling” takes on multiple meanings as the track unfolds – both a noun representing stasis and a verb suggesting obsessive thought patterns. This duality is reflected in the music itself, which somehow manages to feel simultaneously anchored and unmoored, much like the psychological state of someone caught between past and future.

Through this carefully orchestrated chaos, Del Rio has created something that transcends simple genre exercise. “Dwelling” stands as proof that sometimes the best person to translate an artist’s vision is the artist themselves – provided they’ve spent enough nights behind the board to know exactly how sound moves through space.