Ryan Gildea

Left Hand Does

guitars, synths, mixing, co-production

I've been playing with this Boston-based indie rock band since 2008. Founded in the early '00s by siblings Jean and Luke Sullivan, we played tons of gigs in the Boston area over the years with drummer Josh Kiggans. We mostly played the incredibly original and art-rock-inspired tunes written by Jean and Luke. After Josh departed and Andy Tamulynas joined on drums in 2012, we developed a very organic group improvisation and songwriting process. We recorded our rehearsals week after week, and would compile, edit and mix the recording, Then Luke and Jean would choose the best parts as the basis for new songs, writing lyrics and melodies and additional musical ideas too. You can hear the results on our album, “Coast Is Clear”  (2020), as well as “Just A Nerd” (2019) and “Mama Chaos: Legend Language” (2017).

I mixed “Coast Is Clear”  with Luke, who is a graduate of Berklee's Music Production & Engineering program. He recorded us playing the basic tracks together at The Record Co. in Boston. We recorded overdubs at our rehearsal studio in Norwood MA. In addition to traditional overdubs, I also used a new technique, in which I improvised over the whole album, front-to-back, a number of times, choosing the best bits to keep. Then he mixed the drums down to stereo stems, and then I took those and mixed the rest of the songs, adding lots of additional overdubs and production elements in my home studio using Ableton Live. The album most of our others was mastered by Scott Craggs at Old Colony Mastering.

Our latest album, 2023's “Outfinite”, was written by Luke Sullivan in a more traditional manner, although he did use some aleatoric techniques, including a spreadsheet with chord-progression-generating formulae, to create the basic compositions. I recorded my parts here in my home studio, and the album was mixed by Luke at his studio. We continued a tradition of creating video elements during the songwriting process, using clips of old video games, and watched them as we recorded, hoping to create a feeling and vibe based on them. This time we actually released many of them as music videos as well.

We've had so much fun over the years together, experimenting, learning, and creating music that satisfied our own musical tastes and curiosities. I'm very proud of the works we have created together.