Random Records: Rangers - Texas Rock Bottom (2016)
Each week I randomly choose an album etc from my collection to revisit. Sometimes, I like do a little ramble about them.
Circa 2016-2017 I started seeing a particular album cover art pop up time and time again in my Bandcamp-using friends' purchase updates; that's not uncommon, but this time it was more memorable than most times given the sheer ugliness of the cover art itself, a dopey face superimposed over the state of Texas decked in vivid orange. I was intrigued, as I often am when I see a bunch of people I know get obsessed about a piece of music I have no idea about. What ultimately pulled me deeper was a friend of mine (hi Kaoru!) including "Bored to Tears" from the album in a personalised mix they made for me in 2017, which ended up being one of the stand-outs of that compilation and prompted me to research further into this mysterious album that had built a small following among the people I know. As far as random Bandcamp stumbles go, this has proven to have quite the long legs.
Rangers, Joe Knight's solo project, is a largely unknown prospect for me beyond this album and its follow-up, but he seems to be somewhat of a cult figure among fans of hypnagogic pop - which is basically just melodic rock music with an intentionally cruddy sound quality, as far as I can tell. Those who know their Flint Lore know that that doesn't automatically sound like something my delicately-attuned ears would typically go for, but what's found musically within Texas Rock Bottom supersedes its sound quality; and in fact, you could say it even somewhat benefits from him. Knight's songwriting is both immaculately melodic and direct, moving somewhere between desert dry American rock sounds of yore and critically hip indie pop but definitely leaning towards the former, and the hissy and fuzzy production (partly undoubtedly coming from the CD being sourced from direct cassette transfers) is perfect for it. Texas Rock Bottom sounds like a cassette from the late 1970s-early 1980s that you've discovered in a bargain bin somewhere during a road trip, and which somehow fits perfectly with the endless road you're traveling as you give it a curious listen through the car stereos (acknowledging of course that in this scenario, your car still has a cassette player). Knight's lyrical voice is like a road trip on its own, going from point A to point H in a surrealistic slur of statements and snapshots, and again matches beautifully with the sound which feels like it's reaching to the listener from beyond a hazy dream. The hooks are what sell it though: all these nine songs, whether instrumental jams or laden with catchy choruses, stick with you immediately and there's enough variety here that the central shtick never gets tired. The album stays lingering in your head, and in my case it lead me to order the CD on a bit of a whim.
(the CD, incidentally, comes with a couple of bonus tracks. "Coastal Shooter" is a short instrumental which comes across like it was left in an unfinished state but it's still neat. "Regime" is a 25-minute odyssey of segments, snippets and sketches, some familiar from the main album, and it sounds like a dumping ground for all the ideas that went into the album even if they didn't make it in. It's not a casual listening but it's a fascinating epilogue)
As alluded to, Rangers didn't exactly become a mainstay in my collection. I checked out the follow-up album Late Electrics (2018) and though it was nice, it hasn't had the same kind of longevity; though, admittedly, part of the problem is that it didn't get a CD issue which unfairly knocks it down a notch in my listening queue and means it gets lost a bit more in the library. I have however become content of Texas Rock Bottom being one of the curious one-offs in my collection: a singular experience that is a little different from the music around it and which works wonders for this one particular offering without a need to go any further. Sometimes my weekly RNG revisits can feel a little like forced listening, but it's been incredibly easy to abruptly jump into the ethereal world of this album and be reminded of just how good it is again. In its core is simply a really solid bunch of laidback guitar-bass-drums rock songs, but its dry, mirage-like allure makes it its own.