Late last month, Darryl Rahn released a pair of singles titled “Silent Acknowledgement” and “There Ain’t You”. As the first bit of new music from the NYC-based songwriter since his previous LP titled Dusk was released back in February of 2024. Those tracks found Rahn both conscious and explorative in the midst of engaging stories, gentle tunes and enduring melodies as he set out to define the sounds, feelings and beings that he takes inspiration from in his day-to-days.

From the very opening, the groove of “Silent Acknowledgement” blows in like a gust of wind, beginning with a gentle sense of commotion as the instrumentation pushes towards the lighthearted melodies that soon follow. With that, Rahn begins to build off of a sense of familiarity, or the lack thereof, as he works out the terms of a friendship now distant. With subtle guitars that sear the soundscape, Rahn’s deliverance remains upfront, blending wit with conviction and irony with what has been assumed so far. “There Ain’t You” slows the pace but doesn’t muddle the experience. Embracing the softer tones in his tool belt, the track becomes fixated on the textures that bring out the tender longing that Rahn can so masterfully create.

But as he continues to look at what’s next, these songs have become a necessity for Rahn, creating a sense of space for him to play with. It’s not the sonic spacing in these songs per say, but rather the space he allows himself to have in his creativity, breaking away from formulation and expectations, and embracing what matters most when it comes to releasing music as a creative motive.

Meeting up with Rahn while he was on tour playing guitar with the Samia band, we got to discuss setting boundaries in his creative practice, what he’s been working on as of late, and the two new singles that he holds so dear.

This interview has been edited for length and purposes

So you put out two singles recently, your first bit of new music since Dusk, which was a little over a year now. How has that album stood with you, and how does it feel to put out new music? 

Luckily, I still love that album for what it is, but I think that a couple months after it came out, and this happens every time I make an album, I’m into a totally different sound or approach. I get really tired of whatever I just made. To quickly answer the question, it feels really good to put out something new. But the main reason I did that is because I just finished making a new album with a proper band in a studio, trying to do it all right. It’ll take a couple months to mix and master and get it ready to a place of releasing, but I was just feeling so pent up that I made these two songs at home for fun. I was just thinking, I got nothing else going on right now, I might as well learn how to use my stuff better. And it wasn’t until I finished mixing them that I wanted to put them out right now. It’s very rare that I make something and then immediately have space and time to just put it out and still be excited about it. It was the perfect scenario where I haven’t done anything in a while and I’m not going to do anything for at least a couple more months, so why not just put out these things that I’m having fun with? 

With being restless, do you feel like you exhaust these avenues that you take in the recording sessions? Like you said, you get tired with the style and sound of something, but repurposing it as ‘this feels fun, this feels fresh’, was that a new practice for you at all? 

At least new as of late. For the past couple times I’ve made an album, I get to a point where I’m not having fun anymore because I’m just so focused on making the best thing I can and trying to perfect it to a fault where I strip the joy out of it. So, after recording this last album, there were a few days in the studio where I felt truly bad and just so caught in thinking about it all wrong. I needed to have fun to keep making music because I can’t keep working this way. The fun was just a necessity – if I don’t start having a good time making music again, there’s no point. So luckily, “Silent Acknowledgement” came to me pretty quickly and it felt different for me in a way where I don’t have a song with this feel. It felt really good to just do it at home and not have to worry about anybody else. Just try to make it myself. 

In your writing, you do a lot of balancing expectations in your lyrics; what it means to love and to be loved, where you want your life to be at and where you are now, but also expectations that have exhausted the recording process for you.  Have you figured out a way to approach them or hold them differently as you continue to write and continue to put out very personal music? 

I’ve always had really high expectations, and over time they’ve changed a lot. Now my only expectation I try to have is just writing the best song I can, and not having any expectations beyond that. Because it’s always going to be wrong, even if it’s good. Even if the outcome is good, it’s never going to be what you think. Nothing has ever been how I expected it to be, and that’s been really good and really hard at times. It’s a blessing and a curse.

And then these two singles, “Solid Acknowledgements” and “There Ain’t You” are a really nice pairing. At their core, there’s this absence, and each song feels like a different way of holding onto that absence. Why did you decide to pair them together?

“Silent Acknowledgement” to me is about a friendship, and “There Ain’t You” could be about a friendship or a romantic relationship. What’s funny is that “There Ain’t You” sounds like it could be a breakup or something, but it was actually written because my girlfriend was out of town for a weekend, and I was just thinking that it would have been fun if we were hanging out [laughs]. “Silent Acknowledgement” to me, if anybody’s going to hear one, I’d like it to be this one just because it’s the easiest to chew on. But I wanted to add “There Ain’t You” because it’s a little less immediate – it felt like a good after song mint. I wanted to write this little bouncy jam, but I also write a lot of acoustic music that’s a little more introspective too, but that’s not all I want to do. I actually have an album that’s in the can right now, and I tried to cover every sound I like. So, this was like a mini version of that, where I could do it at home with my own skills. I’m always focused on albums and full-length projects, and this, I wanted to challenge myself to just be okay with releasing something small and bite-sized and still care for it as if it’s an album, but just have it be much more condensed.

So with that challenge for yourself, taking the space of an album where you have so much room to work with, but just focusing  on two songs, what do you get fixated on to show that you can be expansive while also being restrained? 

I get fixated on everything, but I still try to be really economical with words. I still try to make that the forefront of everything. How can I get this feeling across in the least amount of words and in the best pairing? This time I tried to focus on immediacy – I tend to get lost in the weeds with a song, seeing it build up through the end. But sometimes my favorite songs start immediately and you get the vibe right away. So I got really fixated on figuring out how I can make this a fun experience to listen to immediately, as opposed to how do I build it differently? 

So these two songs are solely you in your bedroom. And then the upcoming album is first time in the studio for Darryl Rahn band? 

No, not the first time, the last couple albums have been really piecemeal, like recording some guitars at home, do the drums at the studio, try to put it all together, etc. By the end, I would just get so burnt out. I could hear all this patchwork and not in a good way. And so, this time I really wanted to feel like me and my friends had played these songs together and I wanted to capture that. It was the first proper recording experience in a while, where the songs have been written and rehearsed, then I brought the band and the engineer in and captured it all live. I wanted something to feel really cohesive, like a statement of, like, ‘I didn’t mess around this time [laughs]’.

And you’re just making tunes with your buddies.

Yeah, it was a great experience! You know, there were some days where I felt really bad and hated what I was doing. I guess it just came from a place of being tired of my process. And so, to have friends there who were also invested in having it be a good project, because it’s theirs too, felt really healthy. I think it was really a positive thing to have other voices, because they really helped me make sure I didn’t just get so tired of something and not give it its best chance, you know? Because you need to see it through if you want it to go anywhere. They just help you care for things beyond the writing phase, which is really important. I just get so burnt out on stuff as soon as it’s done being written, just thinking of what’s next? And that can be a damaging way to look at art.

How do you combat that? 

I mean, honestly, these two singles, it was me needing to do something else again. Just as long as I’m still taking in information, writing and really feeling like I’m releasing something, not just music, but releasing creativity, I feel revved up enough to have confidence in whatever I’m working on. If I feel creatively stagnant, I feel totally stagnant.

I had a question sent from our friend Nisa [Lumaj]. She was curious, asking, [Darryl] is one of our more prolific songwriters, always releasing and recording. It’s really cool to me that he’s always looking forward. I’m interested in what a songwriting day session looks like for him. Is there a specific ritual or does he write as it comes to him? 

Oh, that’s such a sweet question. For a long time, I tried to just treat it like my job, even when I made zero dollars from it. I would get up early and I would try to free write a page or two just to get my brain going. And then if something stood out to me in that session, I would try to latch on to it and just see the idea through. But now I’ve become more hands off, where I know when I’m in the mood to write. But frankly, like in the past year or two, I started smoking a little weed at night and I realized that my ears and my eyes are a little more open with that. It helps me hear a phrase, even if I’m watching or reading something, it really helps me see an idea and bring it to song form.

Even without weed, I’ll usually be playing guitar and I’ll land on something that interests me in some way and I’ll go deep and get tunnel vision. I can’t do anything until the song is done, basically. Like with “Silent Acknowledgement”, I got that riff just from playing around at home, and I knew this was something I had to dive into, because I get physically uncomfortable until the song’s finished. It’s probably obsessive compulsive disorder, but it’s truly a drug to me. Finishing a song feels so cool to me still because every time it’s done, I don’t know if there will ever be one again. So whenever it happens, I’m so eager to get it out just to prove to myself that I can. And, you know, if I enjoy it at the end of that, then the song might be OK. But I’m always editing. I used to edit until something was quote, unquote, perfect, and I realized later on that I was ruining songs that way. There should be elements of imperfection that get to the root of a feeling, to just be a little more human. 

Is that where the hands off approach is coming from? 

I need to trust that there’s a point where you need to let a song be done because the feeling has left. The feeling is there, and the meaning is there, but the more you pick away at it, the more you can take away. And I’ve got to give credit to listeners more than I do, because they are going to hear a song and no matter what, attach their own meaning. So, if you try to hammer in too much of your own meaning, you’re just depriving the listener from their own story. 

You’re on tour with Samia Band now. It’s not your first big tour, but how has it been?

Oh, I love it! I guess every tour I’ve done has gotten a little bit better in some way. And this one is not even for my own music, but to have this as my day job, I’m pretty happy. Samia is definitely the best boss I’ve ever had. But the shows are really great and Samia’s fans are so sweet. I’m probably similar to a lot of them because I was a Samia fan. I saw her show a couple of years ago on the last tour before I was in the band and it was one of my favorite shows I’ve seen in a long time. So being part of it now and trying to contribute to a great show is a pretty fun project every day. And it feels like I’m getting so much fuel, so when I go home, I’m going to feel musically energized.

You can listen to “Silent Acknowledgement” and “There Ain’t You” out everywhere now!

Written by Shea Roney | Featured Photo Courtesy of Darryl Rahn