deSIGNER DESERT ISLAND DISCS//
About Ren Rigby//
Ren Rigby (AKA Mike Rigby) is an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary designer, educator, and artist based in NYC. They see design as a positive, transformational force that can drive business, shape culture, and improve lives.
Ren is dedicated to advancing people. Much of their work and activism center around the climate crisis and social justice.
Ren serves as the Global Chief Brand Officer of R/GA based in NYC, Ren leads major design projects for clients such as Nike, Google, Shopify, The Cooper Hewitt, Covenant House Homeless Youth Charity, and various startups. (LinkedIn)
Ren Rigby (AKA Mike Rigby) is an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary designer, educator, and artist based in NYC. They see design as a positive, transformational force that can drive business, shape culture, and improve lives.
Ren is dedicated to advancing people. Much of their work and activism center around the climate crisis and social justice.
Ren serves as the Global Chief Brand Officer of R/GA based in NYC, Ren leads major design projects for clients such as Nike, Google, Shopify, The Cooper Hewitt, Covenant House Homeless Youth Charity, and various startups. (LinkedIn)
Top 5 songs to take to the island//
Sound and Vision - David Bowie
Bowie wrote this during his legendary Berlin period with Brian Eno, when he was burnt out, recovering from addiction and trying to reconnect with his creativity again. The whole song is basically about waiting for inspiration to come back. Waiting for “the gift of sound and vision”.
What I love is that the structure mirrors the idea perfectly. The music carries on for ages before Bowie even starts singing, like he’s sitting there waiting for the signal to return. Meanwhile, he’s making one of the most inventive albums of his career.
The Whole of the Moon - The Waterboys
This is also a song about inspiration. “I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon.”
It captures that feeling of having your mind completely blown open by a conversation, an idea, a piece of music, poetry or a piece of art. Realising there’s more out there than you understood before. And then there’s that slightly hidden Penny Lane tribute horn part, lifting the whole song into this celestial, cascading crescendo.
Ceremony - Joy Division
Ian Curtis committed suicide just before the song was recorded. Bernard Sumner pieced the lyrics together as best he could from live recordings. He later said they only really understood how troubled Ian was when they listened back closely.
What makes the song so haunting is how much it sounds like Ian writing about his own death and funeral. “Watching trees pass by” feels like someone describing a funeral procession from inside the hearse. The true genius, then, is that the song itself becomes a literal ceremony, marking the end of Ian and Joy Division, and the beginning of New Order.
It reminds me of Bowie’s Blackstar, another artist turning their own tragic death into art before it happened.
The Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd
To me, music is what feelings sound like, and there’s no better example than Clare Torry’s astonishing vocal solo. She was asked to sing about death without using words. It moves me in a way the spoken word rarely can, all in a single take too!
Angine de Poitrine - Fabienk
French Canadian microtonal math rock genius currently blowing up the internet.
In this new age of AI, I hope we get more weird, brilliantly original music like this masterpiece.
Odd time signatures, odder costumes. Off-kilter riffs, a guitar with 22 extra frets, alien language, pyramid logo. The technicality and musicality are from another planet, as are they. The musical misdirection is genius.
What’s exciting is we’re listening to a new genre bursting through and musical history being written. And despite how startlingly original and complex it all is, their music absolutely kicks arse.
First song / album you purchased//
Hangin’ tough - New kids on the block
Nuff said!
A song for our inevitable demise//
Pyramid Song - Radiohead
Now that I look at this list, it’s clear I like songs about death, pyramids and odd time signatures. This one has all three!
In Egyptian mythology, souls travel by boat through the underworld, guided across cosmic waters. That’s why the song feels calm and ethereal rather than frightening. Death isn’t presented as horror, more as transition or passage.
The lyrics also collapse past, present and future together: “all my past and futures.” That ties into Buddhist ideas and the Stephen Hawking books Thom Yorke was reading at the time.
In my opinion, it has one of the best drum entrances ever recorded. About two and a half minutes in, Phil Selway’s lolloping, jazzy percussion changes the nature of the song and leaves me in awe every time.
To top it all off, if you imagine the song visually, it resembles a pyramid, beginning with a single instrument before expanding outward into ever more orchestral rapture.
A guilty pleasure//
Down at Fraggle Rock - Philip Balsam and Dennis Lee
This music is pure joy. And when combined with the lyrics “Dance your cares away, worries for another day”, it works as my perfect life philosophy. All pleasure, no guilt.
Your favourite record sleeve design//
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Shot on Jones Street in Greenwich Village in 1963, featuring Bob Dylan walking with Suze Rotolo through the snow. The photo became one of the defining visual images of New York bohemian culture. This image is one of the many reasons I now call NYC my home.
Sound and Vision - David Bowie
Bowie wrote this during his legendary Berlin period with Brian Eno, when he was burnt out, recovering from addiction and trying to reconnect with his creativity again. The whole song is basically about waiting for inspiration to come back. Waiting for “the gift of sound and vision”.
What I love is that the structure mirrors the idea perfectly. The music carries on for ages before Bowie even starts singing, like he’s sitting there waiting for the signal to return. Meanwhile, he’s making one of the most inventive albums of his career.
The Whole of the Moon - The Waterboys
This is also a song about inspiration. “I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon.”
It captures that feeling of having your mind completely blown open by a conversation, an idea, a piece of music, poetry or a piece of art. Realising there’s more out there than you understood before. And then there’s that slightly hidden Penny Lane tribute horn part, lifting the whole song into this celestial, cascading crescendo.
Ceremony - Joy Division
Ian Curtis committed suicide just before the song was recorded. Bernard Sumner pieced the lyrics together as best he could from live recordings. He later said they only really understood how troubled Ian was when they listened back closely.
What makes the song so haunting is how much it sounds like Ian writing about his own death and funeral. “Watching trees pass by” feels like someone describing a funeral procession from inside the hearse. The true genius, then, is that the song itself becomes a literal ceremony, marking the end of Ian and Joy Division, and the beginning of New Order.
It reminds me of Bowie’s Blackstar, another artist turning their own tragic death into art before it happened.
The Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd
To me, music is what feelings sound like, and there’s no better example than Clare Torry’s astonishing vocal solo. She was asked to sing about death without using words. It moves me in a way the spoken word rarely can, all in a single take too!
Angine de Poitrine - Fabienk
French Canadian microtonal math rock genius currently blowing up the internet.
In this new age of AI, I hope we get more weird, brilliantly original music like this masterpiece.
Odd time signatures, odder costumes. Off-kilter riffs, a guitar with 22 extra frets, alien language, pyramid logo. The technicality and musicality are from another planet, as are they. The musical misdirection is genius.
What’s exciting is we’re listening to a new genre bursting through and musical history being written. And despite how startlingly original and complex it all is, their music absolutely kicks arse.
First song / album you purchased//
Hangin’ tough - New kids on the block
Nuff said!
A song for our inevitable demise//
Pyramid Song - Radiohead
Now that I look at this list, it’s clear I like songs about death, pyramids and odd time signatures. This one has all three!
In Egyptian mythology, souls travel by boat through the underworld, guided across cosmic waters. That’s why the song feels calm and ethereal rather than frightening. Death isn’t presented as horror, more as transition or passage.
The lyrics also collapse past, present and future together: “all my past and futures.” That ties into Buddhist ideas and the Stephen Hawking books Thom Yorke was reading at the time.
In my opinion, it has one of the best drum entrances ever recorded. About two and a half minutes in, Phil Selway’s lolloping, jazzy percussion changes the nature of the song and leaves me in awe every time.
To top it all off, if you imagine the song visually, it resembles a pyramid, beginning with a single instrument before expanding outward into ever more orchestral rapture.
A guilty pleasure//
Down at Fraggle Rock - Philip Balsam and Dennis Lee
This music is pure joy. And when combined with the lyrics “Dance your cares away, worries for another day”, it works as my perfect life philosophy. All pleasure, no guilt.
Your favourite record sleeve design//
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Shot on Jones Street in Greenwich Village in 1963, featuring Bob Dylan walking with Suze Rotolo through the snow. The photo became one of the defining visual images of New York bohemian culture. This image is one of the many reasons I now call NYC my home.
