with a fixed gaze deep into the future, Feral Children come alive in the skin, they take hold and then break on through. shifting from solo project to full blown rock band Feral Children is a strange and intense take on pop music filtered through the glorious tunnels of psychedelia, noise and electronica characterized by samples, sliced beats, live kit, delay, oddles of reverb, over driven tubes and a strong belief in the thoughts that propel them.
feral children is proud to have played with some incredible bands such as women, braids, frog eyes, dirty beaches, the famines, holzkopf, eamon mcgrath, bruce peninsula, torngat, teen daze, makeout videotape, grimes, tonnstartsbandht, shooting guns, shearing pinx, friendo, peace and born gold(gobble gobble) and have been honoured to play sled island twice, the mammoth cave festival, wyrd fest i and iii and the ness creek festival.
okay.........self released solo CDR " hits and improv " in 2008 charting on edmonton's CJSR.and "Currents" in 2009 which also charted on numerous community based radio stations across canada. both of these will be made available on bandcamp for free download soon.
digitally released the solo "in awe " ep late 2010(http://feralchildren.bandcamp.com/album/in-awe)
and a duo of singles (http://feralchildren.bandcamp.com/album/singles)
the band has just released the Reverb 7" through leaning trees records (http://leaningtreesrecords.tumblr.com/) and independently released a 60 min archives cassette which contains 3 track cut from the upcoming full length, in awe ep, singles, and some solo acoustic experimentation.
the self titled full length album(CD) was released nov.4 2011. solo feral children recorded a one minute song for the mamoth cave recordings( "blood stains across the prairies" 7" compilation which will be released soon enough.(http://mammothcaverecording.com/) + (http://feralchildren.bandcamp.com/)
" Viewing the Feral Children spectacle is a truly singular experience; emotional bellowing from the bottoms of a psychedelic vortex. Creating detailed lysergic textures on the fly with the usage of a lopping pedal and sampler whilst strumming his uniquely tuned, de-strung guitar. This album got heavy play while i finished my thesis, putting out a record, and working full time. I managed to avoid dropping acid but the album was a certified trip each time i took a break from hell to listen. Highly recommended. A top release from 2008." - "hits and improv" review from http://weirdcanada.com/
" Feral Children is the 2009 Tim Buckley; a forward-thinking, genre-hybridization of trends existing in the ethers of our musical conciousness. Where Tim Buckley channled jazz, folk and psychedelia to produce " emotional bellowing from the depths of a drug vortex"(dr.lloyd-waxidermy), Feral Children interpolates the fluxes of psychedelic-pop brewing on the borders of electronic music. His new songs are poppier, thicker, and voluminous; yet they conjure the same looping-pedal+drum machine pop-lysergia present on his first album now with more low-end, more psych and more dance. It's a welcomed progression we rarely see on sophomore albums.A++++++++, fast shipping, will listen again." "Currents" review from http://weirdcanada.com/
"the real highlight of Sled Island day one came from Saskatoon psych-pop troupe Feral Children. Originally formed as the solo project of Ryan Scott Davidson but now expanded into a bona-fide band, their tripped-out epics merged slow-paced shoegaze grooves, 1990s jangle, stuttering beats and Davidson’s swoon-worthy Jeff Buckley-esque croons. Keep an ear and eye out for these kids."http://www.texturemagazine.ca/wordpress/ review of fc's set at 2010 sled island in calgary.
"To be honest, I’ve been hearing Feral Children’s stuff since 2008 or 9, I remember Parker being into it. It’s gotten a lot less weird, and I hope that isn’t offensive to the talented Ryan Davidson behind Feral Children, because everything he puts out exceeds its predecessor. These new singles are all around solid. “Everything is Inside” is the type of psych pop song that leaves enough room for contemplation while still being light enough for the party or the ride for slurpees. “Holy,” surely employed in a Kerouac sense, is a perfect palate for Davidson’s dare-I-say classic rock bay, cloaked in a tasteful layer of reverb and peppered over his trippy guitarscapes in which his tonal discernment is made gloriously manifest. These two singles are a great joy to me and I am really eager to see them live. Recommendations heavy on this one!" - review of bandcamp tunes by http://arguejob.wordpress.com
"The sound of Feral Children is the product of a dense amalgam of influences. Some will pick up on snatches of greasy, late-'80s industrial rock while others will parse out the glitchy loops that dominate the palette of beat-meisters like Aphex Twin. Nearly everyone will be struck by the weighty psychedelic haze that fills every empty space, exerting its ample gravity on the many disparate pieces. “I eat music quickly and am influenced by a ton,” explains project founder Ryan Davidson. “The first wave of psychedelia and garage from the '60s is huge for me and I see how it has inspired everything since then. There were so many bands, all misunderstood teens looking for a way out. The movements that have happened before us — jazz, psychedelia, new wave, no wave, punk, electronica, and so on — provide us with complete freedom to make 'pop' music in any way we see fit.”
Depending on the circumstances, Davidson is either Feral Children itself or the leader of the Feral Children. Long before he recruited bandmates to help him take the sounds inside his head outside, he locked himself in his parents’ basement in Saskatoon and turned his attention inward, working to find a sound he could call his own. When he found that his love of psychedelic effects gelled well with his experiments looping guitar and vocals, Feral Children was born. Davidson still creates most of the songs, but he now has a band behind him to put a twist on the delivery.
“The transition from solo to band was a little tricky,” he explains. “My music is very emotional and it was odd to present my songs to the band and allow it to take a slightly different form based on what each member understood and wanted to happen in the song. A lot of feelings arose that were unexpected, but the band Feral Children has been a cohesive monster for a while now.” Things must be working because the Davidson + Children live experience is renowned as one of the best. When they roll into town for Wyrd Fest, expect them to do their best on stage to work you into a frenzy over their new offerings, including a 7” on Saskatoon's fledgling Leaning Trees imprint, all of which are band releases" - http://www.beatroute.ca/
"Last up in Sask-travaganza was trippy psych-rock/pop experimenters Feral Children. Each time I see this band, it’s a little different, and a little better. Frontman Ryan Davidson ditched his sampling/looping duties and focused solely on guitar and vocals. This gave him the opportunity to really let his personality (and his dance moves) shine, which made for an extra engaging performance." - Jay Allen http://cfcr.ca/
" They really manage to bring a refreshing almost alien energy to a corner of sound often devoid of energy at all. Davidson’s powerful voice especially seems to spin so recklessly with passion that Feral Children are a beast I keep my eye on rather than zone out to.. It’s an almost redundant observation, but the name really does say it all." - Skot Hamilton (CFCR sled island review) http://cfcr.ca/
"Saskatoon’s Feral Children are becoming a crucial cog in the soundtrack of our salvation. In my opinion, Feral Children are one of the most important new bands in Canada. The original FC recordings were the bedroom musings of Davidson, a series of self-taught experiments in looping and noise, with happy accidents forming the edges. Now a proper band, they’re evolving; if their previous work is confused protozoa dwelling in murky primordial ooze, then their new, self-titled album — two years in the making — sprouts legs to walk on land, a purpose slowly forming in the design. Having a full band gives Davidson the opportunity to focus on his guitars and vocals, especially in a live setting. It was always his vision driving this project forward, now it’s literally his amazing and charismatic vocal performance that pushes the boundaries. The songs themselves are a whirl of hypnotic loops, psychedelic white guitar noise, and primal melodies, with Davidson hollering and whooping like the last sane man trying to bring the mad population back from the brink — or perhaps, a madman trying to bring the sane down with him. And yet, in some perverse way, Feral Children is also a pop band — even with everything going on here, there are no shortage of hooks and melodies to latch on to. Feral Children is the stone from the slingshot, flung through time, striking down that which we fear the most. Or maybe it’s just some shit that’s really fun to dance to. Either way, it takes us from being those terrified alley cats to entities making sense of the world — if only for the fleeting length of a jam." - Criag Silliphant @ http://www.planetsmag.com/
"Harbouring electro-loops with a Spock-like stoicism of etherealness, the otherworldly pop sounds would suddenly bow to Davidson’s psyched-out screams of “KHAN!” without the heavy-weighted dramatics of William Shatner.
Capturing the atmosphere of a drugged-out house party and making it howl with too-loud guitars and malfunctioning strobe lights, Feral Children takes sound collages and tosses them fitfully onto the floor with a howl and a yelp" - Chris Morin @ http://www.ominocity.com