AGIRIS /’uh-guy-riss’/ is the alias of Welsh artist Ryan Draper, 24, from Tredegar. The name came from the synthesis of the iris and the periodic symbol for silver.
Before turning his hand to music, he wrote poetry and even had a stint with BBC 1Xtra’s Words First Campaign. Last summer, he released his first EP, Anima, which took him two years to make and used free software on his boyfriend’s computer.
Two of the tracks received plays on BBC Radio Wales, with Adam Walton describing him as “deep, dense, mysterious and imminently intoxicating”.
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Agiris has taken Anima across Europe with electrifying live performances, resulting in the album’s current nomination for Best Album at the Cardiff Music Awards 2020.
He found out about the nomination around a week ago, and felt “elated”, and is the only artist out of the five to not be signed.
“I’m blessed to be linked with these,” he added. “These are people signed to record labels and have a million plays on Spotify. Blessed to be linked with these”.
He says his music is inspired by the likes of Portishead and Massive Attack, and describes it as “spacey, trippy and electronic” with a lot of “hip hop flow” but “more relaxed”.
“I was never doing it to get famous, I just loved doing it.”
He’s worked with a wide range of producers including Sunbane, Jonatan Bäckelie and Bexxo, helping to produce some of the tracks for Anima.
You can vote for Agiris at https://cardiffmusicawards.co.uk/
Check out his website at https://www.agirismusic.com/
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