From his breakthrough moment ‘Berlin’ to his 2019 studio album ‘Unfurl’, RY X has captivated audiences worldwide with songs that simultaneously simmer with confessional intimacy, hypnotic musical motifs, and a palpable sense of cinematic drama. Having amassed over 700 million streams and sold-out shows wherever he has travelled, RY X now builds anticipation for his upcoming third album by sharing his brand-new single ‘Let You Go’. Listen below.

‘Let You Go’ opens with sparse acoustic guitar before RY X’s hazy vocals rise and dissipate like waves drifting in from the ocean. From that point, ‘Let You Go’ exudes an ambience that swirls between soft serenity and a taut, nervous intensity. It’s an atmosphere drawn from the two dominant elements of his sound: the warmth of the pure expression of his vocal and the nuanced mix of live elements and off-kilter electronic beats that makes his production style so singular.

RY X explains, "This song formed from the beginnings of many others, tumbled itself into being, and became one of the centre points of the album energetically for me. An anchor in seas of different sounds, both emotionally and sonically. It intuitively felt right to be one of the first songs shared in the journey of this new body of work, and I'm excited the moment is here."

RY X produced ‘Let You Go’ and co-wrote the song with his live band’s multi-instrumentalist Eric Price. It was subsequently mixed in Los Angeles by the Grammy-nominated Martin Buttrich. 

The accompanying video for ‘Let You Go’ accentuates the song’s fragile, glacial elegance. RY X performs the song alone on a beautifully barren Icelandic beach. It’s a location that acts as a metaphor for the song’s themes of loss and separation: not only does RY X appear to be completely isolated, but his solitude and the camera’s focus on him gives him no way of guarding the song’s emotions.

The video was directed by Benjamin Hardman, a landscape photographer and natural history cinematographer based in Iceland. He specialises in documenting Iceland, Greenland and Svalbard, using the power of photography and the connectivity of social media to raise awareness of our rapidly changing global climate. It’s an approach that has captured the public’s imagination, resulting in over 700,000 followers at Instagram. 

‘Let You Go’ casts first light on RY X’s third studio album, which is now nearing completion. Since starting the project in 2020, RY X has experienced a surge of inspiration which has resulted in countless ideas with approximately 40 songs still in contention for the final cut.

And that’s not all that has commanded the Australian artist’s attention since he released the ‘Unfurl’ album in 2019. One of his final shows of that year was documented in the album ‘Live From The Royal Albert Hall’, while his live prowess was again demonstrated with the visually elegant streamed show ‘Live From The Vibiana’. He also reunited with Frank Wiedemann to release ‘Colure’, their second album together as Howling, and again stretched his wings to collaborate with Duke Dumont on ‘Let Me Go’. Most recently, he spent some time in Iceland working on visual content for his upcoming releases.

Follow RY X:

Website | Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube

Author: Andrew Braithwaite

Andrew is the founder and Managing Director of Music Talkers. He's also a keen music enthusiast and plays the guitar.