‘Driving with the headlights off, / ribbons running down your face, / but you’ve never known love like that, / so you dance the night away.’

In the first few seconds of Calico, Ryan Beatty paints us a picture. A picture of melancholy, of solitude. A picture almost as blue and as piercing as the clear sky behind him on the album’s cover. A pseudo-member of the now-retired hip-hop collective Brockhampton, Ryan is no stranger to emotional vulnerability. Having laid down vocals on songs like 2019’s ‘SUGAR’ and releasing two records of his own (2018’s Boy in Jeans and 2020’s Dreaming of David), he’s made it quite clear that he doesn’t like to keep his cards too close to his chest.

But on 2023’s Calico, he’s more honest than ever, painting a not-so-perfect portrait of love, maturity, and finding the comfort within the chaos of modern life. It slots itself perfectly into the ever-present indie-folk wave of the 2020s, and I’m frankly surprised that it isn’t treated with the same reverence as Phoebe Bridgers’s Punisher or Boygenius’s The Record (with all three projects featuring the subtle, yet cutting production of Ethan Gruska.)

Lead single ‘Ribbons’ bears the same cold clarity as a splash of water to the face after a rough night. It’s subdued, yet overwhelming; it’s a gentle whisper, but also a scream into the void. It tells a story of isolation, in all its parts, sculpting a snapshot of a life without love, for better or for worse. Is it for the better, to ignore the allure of a tender, loving life and to simply ‘be happy to be here at all’? Or will it end up being for the worse, as you’re ‘making faces / at the one who stares’ at you from the bottom of a glass?

Who’s to say? Not us, because the song ends before any conclusions can be drawn, and after a heavenly strings arrangement courtesy of Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Taylor Swift). It teeters on a resolution before meeting an abrupt end, just like a relationship that never quite made it.

Multiplicity is a common theme on Calico; Beatty explores the layers upon layers that make up life as a young adult, like on the aptly named ‘Multiple Endings’, where he wars with the feeling of ‘being used’ in a relationship; ‘I went through days / with multiple endings / just to get through.’ This multiplicity is also reflected in Beatty and Gruska’s production; ‘Cinnamon Bread’, a personal highlight, opens with a sequence of divinely layered guitars that seem to fill every corner of every room, every time I listen. Industry legend Shawn Everett (Beyoncé, Clairo) blesses the whole album with his affinity for mixing, and this shines through on ‘Cinnamon Bread’ the most. Every take of every instrument has its own identity, gathering like a symphony of pure emotion. This was the first song on the album I heard, and to this day, it ‘open[s] up,’ ‘close[s] me in,’ and ‘cut[s] me to the bone.’ It’s nothing short of heavenly.

Calico is remarkably candid from top to bottom, expertly encapsulating the feeling of huddling around a campfire, as I think all folk music should. Its production is quite barebones, with the presence of OTT synthesizers and effects being few and far between. However, on track 4, ‘Andromeda’, Gruska and Beatty pair the grounded and the otherworldly like bread and butter, setting a scene of serene exuberance with soft harmonies and softer synths that feel reminiscent of the Weyes Blood song of the same name. ‘What stops me from sending the call / in a midnight paranoia? / Hey, that’s love after all, isn’t it?’ Beatty seems to muse on every plane of existence as the air builds upon itself around him.

The album is short and sweet at nine tracks, wrapping up with the relentlessly optimistic ‘Little Faith’. Dread is a common theme in a lot of indie music lately, characterising the lowest of lows as nothing but. ‘Little Faith’ is different. Beatty sings about how he’s always hurting, his plants are dying, and everybody but him is getting their way; but still, the only way is up. The chorus sees him lulling himself out of oblivion, as he chants, ‘I don’t think I want to do this, / but I can’t give into my old ways. / So go on, honey, / hallelujah for a little faith.’ It’s a picture-perfect conclusion.

Calling Calico underrated would be gratuitous, but I do think there’s more to this record than people realise. It’s an album people hear in passing rather than something all-consuming; more of a quiet afternoon crush than a violent overnight rush, and that feels criminal. Every day since hearing this album, I’ve sang its praises, and all I can do is pray that one day, it becomes a bigger presence within the modern indie-folk canon, and that people connect with it as much as I do. Hallelujah for a little faith.

Words by Lucas Assagba