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[Dj / Producer / Remixer / Label Manager]

"PROGRESSIVE WONDER" : inthemix.com.au ( Stuey Dean )

Anyone with even a passing interest in the progressive house genre will either know of Ricky Ryan, or should make a point of getting on board pronto. Ricky's profile has grown substantially over the past two years, gaining attention being mentored by the likes of Sasha and John Digweed.

It's not often that you come across a really outstanding DJ, combining oodles of talent with a livewire personality. But Ricky Ryan is just that. In fact, there's a major movement going on in Argentina, with Ricky one of the leaders. Without banging on too much, his success is exemplified with his show on Proton Radio setting a new record of 1,000 simultaneous listeners, along with rave reviews from Sander Kleinenberg, Danny Howells, and Desyn Masiello.

2006 has seen Ricky tour extensively worldwide, play at the WMC in Miami, and land a residency at Warung Club in Brazil.

Ricky's sound is distinguished by a broad variety of music styles, from beautiful warm house, to big pumping dance floor anthems. Aside from the music, Ricky's genuinely likable and approachable personality is a breath of fresh air. His passion and enthusiasm has helped him forge some terrific friendships, and this network is a key reason why he can tap into an abundance of exclusive goodies.

Along with being one of the world's hottest up-and-coming DJs, Ricky Ryan is just as well respected for his remixes and productions. You could loosely categorise him in the progressive house genre, kind of like Luke Fair, however what really grabs me is that Ricky's really cut his own sound, taking the listener on an awesome soundscape from rock and alternative, to silky smooth house and pumping progressive. Under his Can Costa moniker, Ricky is also a prolific producer and remixer is his own right. The stage is set, and Ricky is quickly becoming one of the World's leading underground music acts.

Ricky Ryan is a one-man band. From playing guitar, drums and jazz vocals he seems to have it all covered. His enthusiasm for acquiring instrumental talents has spread across to this production side, where in a small number of years he has risen towards the top of the progressive genre with a multitude of original tracks, remixes and even his own label, Sick Watona.

REVIEW : bringthebeats.com ( Gregor Davidson )

"Straight up, I wouldn't be in this scene as deep as I am, or maybe even at all anymore, if it weren't for Ricky Ryan. I could go on forever about how cool I think this guy is, but really his music tells the story way better than I ever could. But of course I still have a story to tell. Last October we brought Ricky to EXPOSED to help us celebrate bringthebeats' fifth anniversary. It was a night we all will never forget. Not because we finally had the opportunity to hear our favorite international DJ live, in a proper club, for the first time. It was for the absolutely magical vibe that saturated The Mod Club the entire night.

The feeling you have when hearing a DJ with extraordinary skill and instinct move a room, is the feeling that has most of us thirty-something clubbers still living the night life after many, many enduring years. But when it's your friend up there orchestrating the sensation… well that takes it to an entirely different level. It's like the first time all over again.

Moving a step beyond is when the DJ shares the same frequency and I truly believe Ricky was there that night. At least the seven mixes below tell me so. Ricky put together the first three promos when we were planning for EXPOSED visit number two, having an extremely difficult time not talking about how f—cking incredible visit number one was.

Unfortunately, part of the conversations always included how it really wasn't like it was in the "good old days," even though from time to time an event could still live up to expectations (like Ricky's EXPOSED appearance certainly did). But the parties "back in the day" were always about more than just extacy, they were ecstasy. And the music was always the driving force, but nowadays, it's often the reason for a party's decay. In our glory days, it really was "all about the music," cliché or not. The layers within the tracks and the layers of tracks; the depth and emotion… for us there was no other time like the new millennium, when in our opinion, the scene truly came into its own. This time in both of our lives (way before Ricky and I had even met), is where the concept for these seven mixes was born out of. Ricky has always been a master of the mash-up, using classic tracks from this era as way more than just a cheap pop to get the floor nostalgic. With virtual perfection he takes the sounds of our memories and creates fresh vibes with new school grooves.

The January mixes are this with a housey tint and the June sets are the same but on a more progressive tip (broken down into genre for no other reason than the available music of the day led him this way). The concept of accentuating the sets with a classic influence is done in such a subtle fashion you really have no idea that the music is from varied times. And this is where my inept skill to trainspot comes in handy because I have absolutely no desire to even try to pick out these "memory" tracks. Its best you just listen to how perfectly blended they are in the mix. I guarantee most of you will have absolutely no clue to what is old and what is new.

We all find inspiration in our own way and music like this motivates me like you wouldn't believe. And hopefully Ricky will continue to be inspired as well; motivated by the fact that he makes many people like me incredibly satisfied and always entertained by the coolest music anyone finds, edits and mixes anywhere in the world today."

With the experience of a master, Ryan crafted a set consisting of solid percussive tunes and lush, melodic progressive. Hi-hats rose and fell, flaring up like a burlesque dancer's legs during Carnivale, shakers and woodblocks echoing past the speaker stacks and straight onto the dance floor. But about halfway through his set he seemed to lose heart in the waning crowd, which by about 2.30am seemed to be at half capacity and half pace.

Meanwhile, the weird little side room at Candy's was chugging along to the tunes of Foundation, who deserves special mention for his heavy prog set so early into the night. Back to the main room, and Ryan slowed the pace of his set down to a halt, dropping the immensely huge Goodbye Pluto, the bass line ringing right throughout the second half of his set. He launched into a French-electro vocoder-themed track before concentrating on the infectious rhythms that accented the first half of his set.

The recurring underlying sound that Ricky Ryan presented to the audience was traditional progressive, by which I mean the definitive rhythms were punctuated by steady percussive build-ups. Every now and then he'd have the foresight to pander to the mixed crowd gathered at Habit and provide roaring bass heavy tracks bearing similarities to No More Conversations and the like, but with a more dynamic range in the notes, adding to the overall 'funky' elements which interlaced the set.

His transitions between tracks were obvious but smooth as his musical background was implemented into his technical mixing abilities, but he never strayed from the funky rhythm underlying his track selection. Ordinarily the word funky makes me cringe; but Ryan's ability to implement this energy into the dance floor was incredible. His DJ set was wildly different to what I expected, and although I was expecting a smooth summery percussive groove on a yacht surrounded by bronzed models drinking Evian, I wasn't even close. But I did enjoy myself."