Friends of CCR Spotlight: Cyrus

As I’ve said in the past, Collective Confusion Records was founded to help out my friends and bands that I love get their music out there to ears like yours. So, to further this mission, I’ve come up with a little feature that I’m going to call the “Friends of Collective Confusion Spotlight.” I truly believe that all of the bands/artists that I will highlight in this feature deserve your streams, your attention, your downloads, your adoration and fandom.  They are immensely talented, and they are all working hard to make a name for themselves. The goal with this column is simple: to get you to listen. If you hate it, that’s okay – if you love it, that’s obviously better. But as  long as you give these guys a shot, it’s all good to me.

Without further adu, I give you Montreal’s Cyrus. Jarryd Torff aka Cyrus is a good friend of mine – we came up together playing gigs opposite one another in high school. Now based in Montreal, Jarryd has a crazy background in music – he is fluent in all things jazz, hip-hop, rock, you name it, he’s an expert. To give you an idea of what I mean, at sixteen while I was busy drumming off-tempo for a band that dabbled solely in pop-punk covers, Jarryd was playing saxophone, bass, writing and composing music for a jazz fusion band, along with dabbling in production and overall making everybody else look bad in comparison.

It’s with this background in mind that I bring you to the actual project, Cyrus. Known for his intensity on stage, Cyrus samples only drums while using his saxophone, keyboard, and bass to fuse instrumental musicality with his electronic influences, creating grooves that sound both modern yet familiar. Cyrus is a direct nod to his influences both past and present, with songs that dabble in jazz, blues, electronica, rock, hip-hop and more. The great thing about these songs is that you can really hear his influences from track to track. Cyrus also works directly with other artists, producing the grooves that go alongside other like minded artists (for an example, check out “Many Nights”). Cyrus truly is all over the map musically – and that’s definitely a good thing.

So, to make a long story short, I expect big things out of Cyrus. You can expect tour dates and an EP from him out in 2013. Collective Confusion will even be featuring a track or two of his on an upcoming project (stay tuned for that).  If you are a fan of jazz, hip-hop, rock, blues, I promise you you will find something you like in Cyrus. Give it a listen and feel free to let me know what you think. And if you’re in Montreal, keep your ear to the ground and check him out live. And if you're from America... don't hold his Canadian location against him. He was born into it, cut the guy some slack.

-Mike

RIYL: Miles Davis, A Tribe Called Quest, Flying Lotus, J. Dilla

Check him out: CYRUSOFFICIAL.com