Strange Ranger Deluxe Bundle
Strange Ranger Deluxe Bundle
On Pure Music, Strange Ranger’s new album out on Fire Talk, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. The Talk Talk inspired pean to isolation “Way Out” features a moody saxophone, while “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as dual vocals harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere. Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. The alienated might gaze through panes of glass eternally, without breaching the gap between the self and the destabilizing chaos of the world beyond. Riding the train across the East River in the early morning, one witnesses thousands of individual stories, each contained within a glowing square of light, and it's a comfort to know that soon, those strangers will emerge from their solitude to rejoin the city. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” the band says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.” Recorded by the band, mixed by Al Carlson and mastered by Joe LaPorta.
*This is a Pre Order Item, ships on or before the July 21st release date.
More From Strange Ranger…
On Pure Music, Strange Ranger’s new album out on Fire Talk, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. The Talk Talk inspired pean to isolation “Way Out” features a moody saxophone, while “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as dual vocals harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere. Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. The alienated might gaze through panes of glass eternally, without breaching the gap between the self and the destabilizing chaos of the world beyond. Riding the train across the East River in the early morning, one witnesses thousands of individual stories, each contained within a glowing square of light, and it's a comfort to know that soon, those strangers will emerge from their solitude to rejoin the city. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” the band says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.” Recorded by the band, mixed by Al Carlson and mastered by Joe LaPorta.
On Pure Music, Strange Ranger’s new album out on Fire Talk, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. The Talk Talk inspired pean to isolation “Way Out” features a moody saxophone, while “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as dual vocals harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere. Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. The alienated might gaze through panes of glass eternally, without breaching the gap between the self and the destabilizing chaos of the world beyond. Riding the train across the East River in the early morning, one witnesses thousands of individual stories, each contained within a glowing square of light, and it's a comfort to know that soon, those strangers will emerge from their solitude to rejoin the city. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” the band says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.” Recorded by the band, mixed by Al Carlson and mastered by Joe LaPorta.
*This is a Pre Order Item, ships on or before the July 21st release date.
On Pure Music, Strange Ranger’s new album out on Fire Talk, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. The Talk Talk inspired pean to isolation “Way Out” features a moody saxophone, while “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as dual vocals harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere. Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. The alienated might gaze through panes of glass eternally, without breaching the gap between the self and the destabilizing chaos of the world beyond. Riding the train across the East River in the early morning, one witnesses thousands of individual stories, each contained within a glowing square of light, and it's a comfort to know that soon, those strangers will emerge from their solitude to rejoin the city. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” the band says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.” Recorded by the band, mixed by Al Carlson and mastered by Joe LaPorta.
*This is a Pre Order Item, ships on or before the July 21st release date.
Throughout the last decade, Strange Ranger have been crafting seamless indie music that feels both already classic and precisely of its time. From ‘Daymoon's strains of the Microphones by way of the Pacific Northwest-era indie scene to the dark elation and Cure-reminiscent stylings of ‘Remembering the Rockets’ they’ve become one of the rare standouts of a crop of bands that have managed to grow up with us. More than just a stopgap along that progression, the new mixtape entitled No Light In Heaven holds some of the band’s most experimental and ambitious work yet. Stitched together through a series of sessions at both a house in rural NY and Strange Ranger’s home studios in both Philadelphia and NYC (where Eiger and Woodman moved in 2021], the mixtape possesses something both abstract and astute; the product of a band in transition and a group of people making something effortlessly transcendental out of their new surroundings.
With prior accolades from Pitchfork, the FADER, NPR, Uproxx, & more, Vice has heralded their music as “unpredictable and expansive, a thrilling document of a band with an ever-changing muse,” with “songs that are packed with hooks and an abundance of feeling” (Stereogum). This outpouring of evocative emotion makes the band’s more traditional song structures read like a new breed of pop music in its purest form. From “Needing You”’s effervescent euphoria to string-laden album closer “It’s You,” the record seamlessly fuses together a multitude of genres, where the industrial punch of “In Hell” sits alongside the chopped up vocals and melodic keys of “Get Right Up to the Mic.” The tracklist itself continues in this shapeshifting vein, with the addition of melancholic, drum machine-indebted bonus single “Raver Explanation" in the reissue. It’s another touchstone that adds further dimension to what already sounds like a fully-formulated framework of personal notes and embellishments. It’s also the beginning of a new chapter for Strange Ranger and a snapshot that pushes the boundaries of what rock music can sound like, a continued evolution that has made them one of the most exciting new bands of the late 2010s.
You May Also Like…
Recorded in caves, crypts, and shopping centers, Mandy, Indiana's debut album’ i've seen a way’ is everywhere at once: Their first recordings emerged around 2019, with a smattering of early singles released not long after, culminating in 2021’s critically acclaimed ‘…’ EP which saw the band draw early cosigns including a remix from Daniel Avery and support slots from Squid, and Gilla Band. The latter’s Daniel Fox mixed several of the tracks on the album alongside Robin Stewart (Giant Swan) and the album was mastered by Heba Kedry (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bjork). Like Thomas Bangalter locked in This Heat's Cold Storage fridge studio with Special Interest for a weekend, keeping their setup minimal for maximum effect. Buried found sound samples, sprawling percussive experiments are arranged via oblique references to film soundtrack strategies and experimental video games.. "We take inspiration from films where the language of cinema is disrupted," explains Fair, who takes Julia Ducournau's narrative detournements as a key influence. "We want to alter textures, create clashes, and craft those moments when what you're expecting to happen never comes – by subverting expectations you keep an audience on its toes." Though ‘i’ve seen a way’ was painstakingly crafted, where Mandy, Indiana thrives is the unexpected - and the resulting album sounds like nothing that has come before it.
What do you do when pain blots out joy? How do you learn to take care of yourself? What happens when the things you think are helping end up doing the most harm? 'Auto-Pain' is the Sophomore album from Deeper, a record that finds the band embracing open space, using synths to create shadows where bricks of guitars once would’ve blocked out the sun. The group — singer and guitarist Nic Gohl, bassist Drew McBride, and drummer Shiraz Bhatti — were all graduates of Chicago’s rich DIY scene who came together around their love of Wire, Devo, Gang of Four, and Television. While the new record is still within the Great Lakes post-punk tradition of their debut, the album isn’t as insular as its predecessor; it’s less interested in pile-driving and more willing to dwell in liminal spaces. Guitars enter the picture precisely, locked bass grooves propel things forward. Drummer Shiraz Bhatti, who is half-Pakistani and half-Native American, embraced the drumming patterns he’d heard growing up at pow-wows, channeling the anxieties of his heritage into his playing and keeping the group grounded when they switch into all-out percussive attack. The result is an album both more nuanced and catchy.
Auto-Pain represents the constant wave of depression felt by many in everyday life. Stemmed from Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, Auto-Pain is a concept meant to be an inverse to soma, a pill in the book which makes everything numb. The idea of auto-pain is to epitomize the desire to return to a connection with thoughts and clarity, which comes at the expense of feeling everything simultaneously. The album artwork features the now-demolished Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago capturing the band’s rounded-off brutalism, and the album title appears in Urdu, a nod to drummer Shiraz Bhatti’s Pakistani heritage. The record was recorded and mixed by Chicago scene luminary Dave Vetraino (Lala Lala, Dehd) and mastered at Chicago Mastering by Greg Obis (Ne-Hi, Melkbelly).
A portion of the proceeds from Auto-Pain will be donated to Hope For The Day an organization that actively works to break the silence surrounding mental health.
Deep in View is the debut album from former Ought members Tim Darcy (vocals, guitar) and Ben Stidworthy (bass) alongside Evan Cartwright (drums). Titled after philosopher Alan Watts’ anthology of the same name, the record is built on a foundation of elegant guitar grooves and knotty rhythms, offering commentary on modern life and technology through curious lyrical vignettes, where quotidian objects and scenes are never just as they seem. Deep In View is equally a product of introspective songwriting as it is a consideration of the abstract landmarks of an increasingly media-mediated society. It also presents the most concise and melodic songs Darcy and Stidworthy have written to date.. The album sounds streamlined and intentional, as the rhythms of the punchy and exuberant guitar parts, urgent basslines, and unexpected drum patterns all tangle with each other in an elegant dance. At the center of all these elements is Darcy, whose characteristically wry voice shifts from detached to decisive to distressed, throughout the album’s course. Both enigmatically dense in meaning but precisely intricate in sound, Deep in View is an album that sparks novel interpretations with every listen, like an art object that takes on new shape with each angle from which you hold it.
‘Fairy Rust’, the new album from Wombo contemplates the spaces in-between, a meeting of the physicality of the land with the fluidity of the imagination, to uncanny effect. Across twelve tracks, sharpened guitar work, distorted freakouts and downtempo musings weave together a tapestry of sound that’s both intoxicating and effortless, where one minute it’s all deadpan post-punk energy, and the next Stereolab on a mountain top. The music functions as their own localized language that feels uniquely out-of-body. Conceived over the course of the last two years, the record is steeped in its own time warp of escapism, and influenced by fairy tales like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson that blend surreal situations with the mundane. Flirting with prog, pop and effervescent post-punk, Wombo’s forward-thinking approach set them apart as one of the most exciting up-and-coming bands right now. MIxed by Dave Vettraino (Dehd, Deeper, Lala Lala) & Mastered by Jonathan Schenke (Parquet Courts, Snail Mail, Pottery).
Pocket Fantasy, the sophomore album from Mamalarky is an instant-classic sunny-day record, imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of skyhigh hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shapeshift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humor and hope. Heralded by Billboard, Nylon, The Fader and more, the new album expands on the unique sound of their self-titled debut which Pitchfork called “tenderly tangled indie rock”. On Pocket Fantasy some of the band’s purest pop tendencies collide with more warped and weird strains of quirky psych. It’s a treasure trove of playful grooves and zigzag riffs, a phenomenal album from a young group poised to carve their own place in the bins of your favorite record store.
Pleasure is the debut album from Austin underground luminaries Pure X, re-issued on 180 gram vinyl by Fire Talk. Building from promising 7” releases, ‘Pleasure’ continues the band’s affinity for burnt out soundscapes and intricate, understated guitar work that together weaves a moody tapestry of everlasting sunset. Spotlighted by major press, Pitchfork in particular commended the album as a “terrific-sounding record, built for headphones and high volume.” A revelatory introduction to the band, ‘Pleasure’ pinpoints a signature sound that Pure X would continue to hone over the course of a longstanding career - a pristinely devastating soundtrack that feels pertinent to the end times of the current state of the world.
Pressed on 180 Gram Black Vinyl.