Unusual Ranger

Pure Music

Hearth Speak

Jul 21, 2023
Internet Unique

By Caleb Campbell

Unusual Ranger has by no means appeared to cease transferring. Founding members Isaac Eiger and Fred Nixon grew up in Montana earlier than making their approach to Portland, the place they debuted beneath the identify Sioux Falls with their 2016 file, Rot Endlessly. After altering their identify to Unusual Ranger, the band returned with an expansive double LP, 2017’s Daymoon. Lastly, the band’s breakthrough second got here in 2019 once they relocated to Philadelphia, expanded their line-up, and launched their glorious ‘90s-indebted third LP, Remembering the Rockets.

This yr, the band has as soon as once more moved on, now break up between Philadelphia and New York, and so they have as soon as once more reinvented themselves with their newest album, Pure Music. The file traces one other alternate historical past for the band, bringing out influences from home, journey hop, disco, and electronica. The membership is their newest venue, so the album ensconces their layers of shoegaze guitars and boundless synth textures inside trippy loops, hypnotic breakbeats, and an ocean of uneven samples. At factors on the file, they handle to discover a mercurial crossroads between acid-fried Madchester haze, My Bloody Valentine-style shoegaze, and the indie experimentalist fervor of bands like Spirit of the Beehive.

It makes for a novel shift for the band, however one which feels very in a lot in keeping with their stressed stylistic development. Followers acquired a style of this type with their 2021 mixtape No Gentle in Heaven, which teased the band’s newest reinvention in a extra summary and scattershot type. In distinction, Pure Music is clean and seamless, with every observe flowing effortlessly into the next一in each transitions and tone. The existential meditations and spacious sonics of “Rain So Exhausting” make for a blissful marriage with the wistful tones and cascading guitars on “She’s On Hearth.” In flip, that observe units the stage for “Dream,” which finds the band layering dramatic keys and spacious journey hop beats into the combination, bolstered by pulsing synths and chopped samples.

The file continues on on this vein, conjuring a decadent swirl of indie pop, electronica, and indie rock with particular care paid to the plush manufacturing and detailed mixing. The album thrives within the particulars, from the quiet rainfall and fascinating beat change on “Fantasy,” to the jazzy sax soloing that colours “Blush” and “Means Out.” The band is chasing euphoria on Pure Music, making for a file that each reaches for the rafters and feels meant for insular headphone listening.

The file’s lyrics occupy a equally uncanny area, meditating on confusion and uncertainty whereas craving for one thing deeper. A lot of the album finds the band in between states, a becoming liminal ingredient provided that it was written as Eiger and bandmate and co-vocalist Fiona Woodman have been within the means of breaking apart. “Rain So Exhausting” fuses these themes and imagines heartache as a cinematic drama, with Eiger singing, “Now every part simply runs backwards/And forwards on a regular basis” and Woodman responding “How do I get out of this film now?”

Equally, the band as soon as once more strikes on an aching nostalgic ingredient, looking for a spot of belonging, pleasure, or connection. Reminiscence proves a continuing companion all through the album. “Blue Shade” finds Eiger confessing, “Heaven is misplaced and located in open vary/Larger love in cyclic ultraviolet waves/And your reminiscence is a roadblock in my method.” In distinction, on “She’s on Hearth” Eiger begs, “Keep simply at some point/Attempt to really feel the identical.” In the meantime, the accompanying heat glow and twilit haze depart the listener immersed in a decadent and unplaceable longing.

Each music fan possible has a reminiscence they affiliate with “pure music,” be it the apex of a fastidiously crafted album, a frenzied rave excessive, or a blistering pit. These moments are what animates Unusual Ranger’s newest album. The truest escape the band appears to search out is in music at its most euphoric, and there’s a sense that they’re making an attempt to drag transcendence from the world of basslines and trancelike rhythms. They confess as such with “Ask Me About My Love Life”: “I can not shake this odd sensation I’m in movement/However I’m parked/And I’m sinking within the bass line like a footstep at nighttime/I need to wade into the water/By no means finish and by no means begin.” Pure Music invitations the listener into these depths, providing a dose of Unusual Ranger at their most potent, polished, and adventurous. (www.strangeranger.bandcamp.com)

Creator score: 8.5/10