Steven Ricks‘ new release, “Young American Inventions”, begins with an automated vocal greeting, speaking, “Hello, pay close attention, everything is ready, so let’s begin.” This quirky opening invites us into his conflicted relationship with technological affect, cliché and populism, underscoring questions about our culture’s relationship to musical sound. Ricks combines several strains of American compositional tradition, an awareness of found objects and found sounds, an academic modernist’s approach to pitch and rhythm, and a minimalist’s penchant for repetition with variation.