Really happy to have the opportunity to write about one of my favorite albums of the 21st Century so far: Suburban Tours by Rangers. For Pitchfork's Sunday Review series.
It was also an opportunity to get started - possibly jumping a gun a bit, since it's only 16 years since, but why not? - on feeling nostalgic about chillwave a/k/a hypnagogic pop.
The Rangers review is also a kind of an ambivalent ode to suburbia - where I grew up, where I returned to (but not forever?) - and this is something explored previously in this essay about Ernest Hood's Neighbourhoods for The Nation.
Here's an epic 13 minute-plus track from the follow-up to Suburban Tours, the double album Pan Am Stories. "Zeke's Dream" takes the stoned-on-sunshine sound of the previous album even further, especially in the last of its several segments: a controlled explosion of ecstatic noise, two minutes of blasting bliss I could happily listen to for ten times longer. Joe Knight, self-effacing guitar hero.
Hello Mr Reynolds, bit random this and irrelevant to this post, but I just wanted to thank you for a musical tip in a past post that became probably my most listened to artist this year. The mention was of Adam Rudolph and Bennie Maupin's Symphonic Tone Poem for Brother Yusef. How had I never encountered Rudolph before I wondered, then with a shock realised that he was the percussionist on one of my lifelong favourites, Hassell's City: Works of Fiction. Anyway, thank you again for the recommendation and season's greetings!
ReplyDeleteOh nice one, glad to hear it.
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