Kelley Ryan

Kelley Ryan anchored the rootsy Los Angeles power-pop outfit astroPuppees for ten years, guiding the collective through four albums issued from 1996 to 2005—two on the Hightone label and two on her own Manatee imprint. Attention from singer/songwriter Marti Jones, her producer husband Don Dixon, and new-wave stalwart Marshall Crenshaw followed, with each artist eventually contributing guest spots to various astroPuppees recordings. Ryan returned the favor by co-writing two songs for Jones’s 2002 release My Tidy Doily Dream and again for Crenshaw’s 2009 album Jaggedland. Those Crenshaw sessions, overseen by Dixon, had originally been intended as the next astroPuppees project. When Ryan found herself supplying every lyric for the first time in her catalog, the material was recast as her solo debut. Issued in early 2010 under the title Twist, the record included further contributions from Dixon and Jones, a pair of string arrangements by legendary pop eccentric Van Dyke Parks, and a cover of Beck’s “Lost Cause.”