Rising Artist Jean Ryden Unveils New Single 'Parallel Universe'

Rising artist, songwriter and producer Jean Ryden unveils a new single, “Parallel Universe,” alongside a video directed by Angela Ricciardi and Silken Weinberg (Ethel Cain, Albert Hammond Jr) with Jean Ryden. The track, written and produced by Jean, is a vivid personal statement that blends her past and present through a dreamy piano arrangement and haunting lyrics.

“I still have reoccurring dreams where I’m back at the property I grew up on with my parents,” says Jean. “The particular dream that inspired the song felt extremely visceral—it left me with this jarring feeling when I woke up, like the life I had and lost was simply a dream away.

I could close my eyes and be in some other world where nothing bad ever happened, standing in my parents’ room where their bed and belongings were exactly as they left them or laughing in the garden with my mom. After losing both my parents I felt like I was robbed of the life I had and the future I could’ve had. I still feel like my life, as it was, continues on in some parallel universe unscathed by this fault in the stars—but that I am trapped in the wrong one.”

The video weaves together archival family footage with shots of a present-day Ryden to reflect the coming and going of memories, dreams and the overwhelming feeling of wishing a different world was possible. “Parallel Universe” follows the artist’s cinematic debut single, “Chlorine,” which was released earlier this summer to praise from Consequence and Ones to Watch. More from Ryden is imminent. 

The Los Angeles-based artist began studying music at age three, when she started cello lessons as a child on Long Island. Music had long been in her family. Her maternal grandparents were founding members of the Long Island Philharmonic; her grandfather on her mother’s side was a session violinist who had played with Stevie Nicks and Chet Baker and her grandmother, Jean Ryden Eley, is the inspiration for her artist persona.

Ryden’s Julliard-trained mother passed on the family’s passion for music to Ryden, instilling a two-hours-a-day practice habit in her daughter. 

Ryden’s early training, combined with her study of producers like Rostam, James Blake, and Sufjan Stevens, and lyrical influences Elliott Smith and Regina Spektor and Mitski, inform her classic pop songwriting and meticulous production.

Photo credit:  Angela Ricciardi & Silken Weinberg