Anthony Ruptak
Tourist
Colorado-based artist Anthony Ruptak releases his latest long player, Tourist, an album exploring the status quo of the world, other people, and living, all from the perspective of the universal human condition — imperfect and mortal.
Ruptak, who is a paramedic, wrote many of the songs on Tourist between shifts. Thus, unsurprisingly, the songs bring to light the delicacy and wonder of human life.
Over the course of his career, Ruptak has shared the stage with Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Kiltro, Mimicking Birds, Anna Tivel, Los Mocochetes, Covenhoven, Bellhoss, Sun Stoney, Joe Sampson, and Julie Davis. He has performed at Red Rocks, the Westword Music Showcase, FoCoMX, the Midwest Music Fest, and Honky Tonk Hodge Podge. In 2025, Ruptak will return to the Underground Music Showcase as a Legacy Artist.
The album begins with the title track, a dreamy, chromatic tune that starts like a dream-pop melody and then takes on the dynamics of indie-rock guitars with edgy, dirty textures. Ruptak’s unique voice pulls you in with its nuanced tones.
Sitting somewhere between shoegaze and dream pop, “Trauma Naked” thrums with tight energy and almost jangly surfaces that seep into your soul. There’s an escalating, frantic feel to Ruptak’s vocals, especially as the song progresses.
A personal favorite because of its low-slung, Dylan-like melody, “Phantasmagoria” reveals a drifting, gliding harmonic flow, while Ruptak’s voice breaks deliciously, taking on wonderful discordant timbres.
Ruptak explains, the song is “a broad collection of ruminations on the overall state of the world in the year 2025.”
He goes on, “As we try to navigate our roles and responsibilities during a time of rapid, volatile change, we become beaten down and desensitized to the massive scale of suffering taking place on this shared, warming planet. People are lonely, fatigued, and scared. ‘Phantasmagoria’ is an anthem for the apocalypse — a reflection of what it feels like to watch the world burn from our phones while the ultra-wealthy amass infinite capital and the rest of us are left grappling with helplessness and doom-scrolling fatigue.”
There’s a gentle, folk feel and flow to “Shitshow,” a song that Ruptak describes as “about… the overwhelming, connective influence of death in all our lives. ‘Shitshow’ also memorializes my past relationship to alcohol and explores the romanticization of self-abuse.”
The melancholic yet elegant “Lenny’s Rest” closes the album. It’s a song about realizing who you are as a human being, and that, as Ruptak says, “Life is short and precious.” Knowing that allows you to escape self-absorption and feel the emotions of others and the world.
Tourist is a heartfelt album of innovative folk-rock that takes listeners on a journey through life, death, and religion. This is a wonderful album.
