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.
