In an age of disposable digital downloads, Ryan Settee doesn't really fit in. The 30-year-old local musician is the brains behind High Watt Electrocutions, a psychedelic mind-trip that demands a good set of headphones and a pair of dedicated ears.

"I like well-produced albums, albums that flow well and have a bunch of different gears to shift, too," Settee says. "It's not just one thing all the time. That's something I think is going down the tubes nowadays. It's almost reverted back to 1955 to '65 when you have a lot of singles. The single often sells the album, but now you often don't really have an album to sell, if people even get beyond the singles. With iPods, people are hearing it but they're not really listening to it. There's a difference between hearing it and listening to it. Every way is right, but I fear a musical world where bands don't take risks on recordings."

HWE recently released Desert Opuses, an album based around a Middle Eastern concept. Lyrically, this notion might be lost on the listener as Settee keeps his vocals a bit buried in the mix, but the music definitely keeps the mood.

"I usually write the music first and then I try to figure out what exactly it's trying to say," he says. "That's why some of the music stays instrumental, because I think it kind of says it all in that way. I like the power of mood. You don't always need lyrics. That's something I want to convey.

"I think there is a paranoid sort of terror vibe to it. It kind of sounds like the soundtrack to people building pyramids. It has a creepy quality. If I walked through a tomb or something like that, I'd be pretty freaked out, so I guess it sounds like a soundtrack to that."

Mastered by John Golden (The Melvins, Sonic Youth, Primus) and pressed on translucent gold 140 gram vinyl (as a well as CD) Desert Opuses is Settee's second album. In 2007, HWE released Night Songs, an epic Sabbath-meets-Stooges-meets-Spacemen 3 stoner-rock romp. While Desert Opuses is shorter than its predecessor, it's definitely as unconventional.

"I wish more bands would take gigantic risks," Settee says. "I think many bands are playing it safe because they're hoping to get heard by some record exec instead of expanding on an idea and saying, 'If this is going to go under, we might as well captain the ship and drive it into the ground right.'

"If (Desert Opuses') downfall is it's too weird, its upside is you're getting 100% non-commercial vision."

For more info on HWE, check out www.highwattelectrocutions.com.

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