St Ranger

                St Ranger released another sweet song off of their yet untitled album. I’m not sure if giving away music is a good business model. Perhaps it is important to give the listener some idea of what to expect. That’s what I assume the purpose is for this young, young group.

                When I hear they were all in other bands before this, I feel so lazy. How many people have been in bands since their early teens? Every day it is more and more people. I had a solo project, I’m not sure if it counts as the same thing. Laptop musicians aren’t really as beloved.

                Their most recent song “Shark Week” sprawls. I mean this in the best way possible. Seeing a band get messy is one of my greatest pleasures. What would “Teenage Riot” be if Sonic Youth decided to whittle down its length? Listening to “Shark Week” shows what happens when a band decides to stretch out. 

                “Shark Week” begins in the middle of things. Unlike the previous song, you’re just thrown into things. The drums are a bit more prominent in this one. I’m still pretty amazed at how St Ranger manages to sound so graceful. You’re reminded this is a five-piece band, it sounds so big. The vocals are fantastic. Again I’m reminded of the late 80s, when music began to pull itself out of the ‘New Wave’, out of plastic pop, and feel human emotions. That may be one of my favorite periods of music, hands-down. 

                Part of me wonders if they aren’t just going to tease out the entire album. You know, every couple of weeks release another track until lo and behold, it is summer. I wouldn’t be opposed to this approach. Seeing them live wouldn’t be a bad idea either, but unfortunately they haven’t quite made it to my neck of the woods yet. Perhaps they will sometime soon.

Girlhood – Epilepsy Overview 7.7

               Edouard Urcadez’s solo project focuses on some heavier, noisy sounds. The second release in the cryptic weirdness of the ongoing experiment called “HolyPageRecords” it is surprisingly moving. I found it moving for the huge amount of patience Edouard employs in the pacing and sounds he uses. Usually noise artists are keener to explore pointless aggression, but his ability to infuse a kind of longing, a certain tragedy, is a nice flair. 

                “1995” introduces things with a rather calm approach. As an introduction, it works well, but by being the calmest track of the bunch, it doesn’t really prepare you for what’s going to come. For whatever reason, the sounds of “No Ammo” remind me of a lo-fi Salem. Maybe it’s the blurred lyrics, or the most straightforward beats you find on the album. It might also be the menacing feel of the bass as it hits, distorting things virtually beyond recognition.

                Sometimes though there’s a song in an album which kind of serves as a “thesis statement” or “artist’s intent” and explains everything. For me, that song was “Body Heat”. On here, Girlhood gets into a good mixture of longing and tenderness. The song begins off quiet and slowly builds. Rather than just have it blast off into noise, he keeps its barely restrained, allowing the slight changes in rhythmic impulses do more speaking than any increase in volume could hope to achieve. 

                After that song, everything else on the album starts to make sense. Even the closer “Victimize” presents more tragedy than outright violence. It’s a good, noisy, but oddly endearing end to this rather bizarre EP. Get it free here.

Vladee Divacc – Technical Foul EP 7.4

Maybe the kids in Tempe, Arizona need something to do. Leave it to the blandest suburbs imaginable that would make people create “Dunkwave”. Apparently Dunkwave is a mixture of noise, drone, and random basketball samples. Before you groan and say “Geez, that sounds like literally the most awful thing ever” give it a listen. I decided to pretend I hadn’t just read what it actually was and put it on.

Vladee Divacc (a reference to the Serbian basketball player Vlade Divac) consists of Edouard Urcadez and Christian Filardo, two young artists from Arizona State University. Together they’ve made an oddly compelling noise/drone act. Plus, they get rid of the usual boring acts by playing in actual basketball courts (though they get kicked out, which is unfortunate).

Right from the get go, you feel the bouncing ball, though it is disguised through various levels of distortion. “Ostertag” has this is in full as you hear the healthy levels of distortion. The word “Ostertag” swims through the delightful muck. 

The vocals grab you though. Sounding like early Pocahaunted vocals, they are sustained for unreasonable periods of time. Mixed with the lower registers, it occasionally transforms into some beautiful moments, like dead in the center of “Drazen Petrovic (Hero)” where they seem to reach a gentle, fleeting moment. “Technical” is just basically vocals for the majority of the song and is shockingly well-done. 

Despite what many might see as a pointless gimmick, it does succeed in what it sets up to do. Basketball suddenly becomes a part of this hyper-weird environment. The gimmick actually helps give it a personality, avoiding the fate of being faceless artists making noise drone music. And at only 12 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. 

Below is a link to the album, which you can download for free off of bandcamp:

Vladee Divacc