It's invigorating when an artist or band undergoes a drastic transformation in style or vision without losing their identity. Strange Ranger are one such act who have evolved with grace, and it's the kind of evolution that should be announced with trumpets and fireworks.
For the better part of 10 years, even when the band were known as Sioux Falls before a name change in 2016, Strange Ranger carved out a nice little groove dabbling in emo-adjacent sounds with a post-rock bent. But in 2021, they emerged out of left field with No Light in Heaven, an experimental mixtape — at least by their standards — which saw them diverge greatly from their comfort zone. In letting loose, the release was met with polarizing reception, written off as a one-time indulgence in the music that fascinated the band during the mixtape's creation. Turns out, it was only a sign of things to come.
Strange Ranger have doubled down on the music they want to create while reconciling a style loved by so many. Their latest offering, Pure Music, is the offspring of their past coalescing with the polarizing musical future first presented by No Light in Heaven. Largely purging themselves of their sprawling, emotive guitar-forward sound, their latest contains musical multitudes — a deviating, hypnotic blend of dreary garage and glitchy indietronica rendering the Strange Ranger project almost unrecognizable. It's an immersible metamorphosis that makes Pure Music a wholly unique experience, even if it's dotted with artist and genre references easily gleaned through its absorbing aural haze.
As soon as the line, "How do I get out of this movie now?" is uttered on opener "Rain So Hard" — a question that reverberates with existential haste through the rest of Pure Music — listeners are entrenched in the roiling thoughts of our narrator. Embattled by confusion and the bittersweet memories left as shrapnel from a relationship gone awry, Isaac Eiger is regularly despondent: "I remember our old life / I remember its fading cries / I was a loser and a child...", he sings on "Way Out," a pained and self-admitting reflection later echoed with transient resolve by Fiona Woodman on "Wide Awake" when she sings "You're in a photo image overexposed to light / Lips blinding white but grinning…"
As our narrator, replete with confusion, plays tug of war with these thoughts and self-reproach, it conjures the backseat of an Uber in the rain, head against the cool, condensed window with headphones in ear. They're probably getting lost in the gripping mist of Burial — or maybe Fred Again… if they're in their early 20s — which feels especially true during the record's more clouded garage-y cuts, like "Dream" and "Fantasy." But as you're bewitched by stretches of glitchy, oddball indietronica on a song like "Ask Me About My Life," you're also greeted by visions of Alex G or Yves Tumor — hell, even A Thousand Suns-era Linkin Park — as you behold the trip-hop spell cast between "Way Out" and"'Blue Shade."
Unlike their 2021 mixtape, which scaled vast expanses in 25 minutes with no regard for easy listening, every moment on Pure Music blends into the next undisturbed — as if part of some bigger storyline hardly expressed lyrically but musically, with great affection. Connecting the entire record is an unbridled inclination to grow and develop for the sake of expanding sonic horizons. House, trip-hop, glitch and any other genre tag destined to be attached to Pure Music are all apropos when entertaining Strange Ranger's kaleidoscopic vision. With their continued intent toward atmospheric grandeur, this project captivates most with its panoramic spirit.
Pure Music, at its core, is unrestrained dream pop with a deeply anguished heart, navigating the relational disconnect of a post-COVID world. Disconnect yields confusion and confusion abounds into amorphous beauty, like some zillenial Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, if you pretend the two kids from the cover art of M83's decade-defining double album grew up to make music of their own, music that taps into some kindred, hauntological gravity resting in the aftermath of a breakup.
There's no denying the aggrieved and entrancing pull of Pure Music; you'll stand in awe of its expansiveness, entrenched under the aural rains it casts down. While you may not find yourself yearning for its ephemeral downpour after the record's last seconds tick away, that doesn't mean Pure Music won't still transport you if you stumble into its grasp. For this gracefully shapeshifting act, Pure Music is Strange Ranger's most alluring and most impressive effort yet. Fans of the band's beginnings will probably remain averse to this affirmed sonic shift, but it's hard not to respect an outfit brazenly evolving by throwing everything familiar out the window and going buck wild with their vision.
(Fire Talk)For the better part of 10 years, even when the band were known as Sioux Falls before a name change in 2016, Strange Ranger carved out a nice little groove dabbling in emo-adjacent sounds with a post-rock bent. But in 2021, they emerged out of left field with No Light in Heaven, an experimental mixtape — at least by their standards — which saw them diverge greatly from their comfort zone. In letting loose, the release was met with polarizing reception, written off as a one-time indulgence in the music that fascinated the band during the mixtape's creation. Turns out, it was only a sign of things to come.
Strange Ranger have doubled down on the music they want to create while reconciling a style loved by so many. Their latest offering, Pure Music, is the offspring of their past coalescing with the polarizing musical future first presented by No Light in Heaven. Largely purging themselves of their sprawling, emotive guitar-forward sound, their latest contains musical multitudes — a deviating, hypnotic blend of dreary garage and glitchy indietronica rendering the Strange Ranger project almost unrecognizable. It's an immersible metamorphosis that makes Pure Music a wholly unique experience, even if it's dotted with artist and genre references easily gleaned through its absorbing aural haze.
As soon as the line, "How do I get out of this movie now?" is uttered on opener "Rain So Hard" — a question that reverberates with existential haste through the rest of Pure Music — listeners are entrenched in the roiling thoughts of our narrator. Embattled by confusion and the bittersweet memories left as shrapnel from a relationship gone awry, Isaac Eiger is regularly despondent: "I remember our old life / I remember its fading cries / I was a loser and a child...", he sings on "Way Out," a pained and self-admitting reflection later echoed with transient resolve by Fiona Woodman on "Wide Awake" when she sings "You're in a photo image overexposed to light / Lips blinding white but grinning…"
As our narrator, replete with confusion, plays tug of war with these thoughts and self-reproach, it conjures the backseat of an Uber in the rain, head against the cool, condensed window with headphones in ear. They're probably getting lost in the gripping mist of Burial — or maybe Fred Again… if they're in their early 20s — which feels especially true during the record's more clouded garage-y cuts, like "Dream" and "Fantasy." But as you're bewitched by stretches of glitchy, oddball indietronica on a song like "Ask Me About My Life," you're also greeted by visions of Alex G or Yves Tumor — hell, even A Thousand Suns-era Linkin Park — as you behold the trip-hop spell cast between "Way Out" and"'Blue Shade."
Unlike their 2021 mixtape, which scaled vast expanses in 25 minutes with no regard for easy listening, every moment on Pure Music blends into the next undisturbed — as if part of some bigger storyline hardly expressed lyrically but musically, with great affection. Connecting the entire record is an unbridled inclination to grow and develop for the sake of expanding sonic horizons. House, trip-hop, glitch and any other genre tag destined to be attached to Pure Music are all apropos when entertaining Strange Ranger's kaleidoscopic vision. With their continued intent toward atmospheric grandeur, this project captivates most with its panoramic spirit.
Pure Music, at its core, is unrestrained dream pop with a deeply anguished heart, navigating the relational disconnect of a post-COVID world. Disconnect yields confusion and confusion abounds into amorphous beauty, like some zillenial Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, if you pretend the two kids from the cover art of M83's decade-defining double album grew up to make music of their own, music that taps into some kindred, hauntological gravity resting in the aftermath of a breakup.
There's no denying the aggrieved and entrancing pull of Pure Music; you'll stand in awe of its expansiveness, entrenched under the aural rains it casts down. While you may not find yourself yearning for its ephemeral downpour after the record's last seconds tick away, that doesn't mean Pure Music won't still transport you if you stumble into its grasp. For this gracefully shapeshifting act, Pure Music is Strange Ranger's most alluring and most impressive effort yet. Fans of the band's beginnings will probably remain averse to this affirmed sonic shift, but it's hard not to respect an outfit brazenly evolving by throwing everything familiar out the window and going buck wild with their vision.