Ranges – The Ascensionist Tour and dunk!fest 2017

This is exciting.

I’ve been running Will Not Fade for just over three years now. I cover a variety of music, but the reality is that I’m mostly known for my post-rock content. I never planned on becoming pigeon-holed like that, but it is what it is, and it has helped me form connections within the international post-rock community.

As some readers may know, I left my hometown of Wellington, New Zealand in June, and have been travelling around the USA since. I met up with Jesse from Glacier in Boston, Matt and Joe from Aviation and the War in Chicago, and now I’m staying with CJ from Ranges in Bozeman, Montana.

I feel that talking about this is on par with discussing interconnections and unity and one love and a bunch of hippy nonsense. Why don’t we all reflect on how we are vessels of creativity? But joking aside – it truly is special that I’ve managed to befriend people from around the world based on a mutual love of music.

CJ reached out to me via Twitter a few years ago asking me to review Ranges latest release. Soon after I offered him the chance to become a contributor to Will Not Fade. I’ve reviewed some of his band’s releases, and offered advice when his company A Thousand Arms released some compilations [Open Language, Hemispheres]. And now I’m staying at his house, attending his album release show, and will be accompanying his band on tour at the end of the month.

The latest Ranges album is The Ascensionist. It’s a progression from the band’s earlier works, with each song referencing a former album.

Here’s the marketing spiel:

Pre-orders for Ranges‘ new album ‘The Ascensionist’ are now available through A Thousand Arms (US) and dunk!records (EU). This release is split into two variants with A Thousand arms carrying the 180g Milky Clear with Bone A Side/B Side variant and dunk!records carrying the 180g Bone with Orange Crush A Side/B Side variant. Both variants come in upgraded reverse board gatefold packaging that includes a hand-numbered eight page screen-printed booklet with custom sewn binding. Cover paper handmade by RANGES using recycled cotton and native plants from the Bridger mountainrange near Bozeman, Montana. Also included in every vinyl order is an individually stained felt slipmat with a two color water-based screen-print. Digital download included.

In true A Thousand Arms style, the guys have gone waaaaay over the top. Most bands record an album, pay someone to mix and master it, and maybe order some tshirts to sell as well.

The Ranges guys:

Record in their own studio
Print their own merch
Screenprint the boxes they use to post said merch in
Printed slipmats to go with the vinyl records.
Hand made the very paper that they use to make a booklet that comes with each record
Teamed up with a local brewery to brew a beer to coincide with the album release
Which you can sip from a limited edition Ranges pint glass
Or if beer isn’t your thing, than maybe you’d prefer a special batch of coffee beans roasted to go with the album
And you could use one of the ceramic mugs that bassist Jared Gabriel threw to drink said coffee from

So if you haven’t concluded for yourself already: these guys are really into attention to detail aspects. They embody a DIY ethos. And their music rules.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by R A N G E S (@rangesmusic)

I spent yesterday with the Ranges crew at a listening party at Badger Brewing in Bozeman. It was a great time, hanging out with the families and having pizza and beer (The Ascensionist IPA). They sold a lot of merch and albums, and at this rate they may run out of vinyl records before they get to dunk!festival. A nice worry to have.

As I said before, I’ll be tagging along with Ranges on the road during their upcoming tour. I plan on keeping a tour diary, posting photos, and covering the events at dunk!festival in Burlington, Vermont. You can follow our exploits by keeping an eye on the WNF site during October, and you can also subscribe or follow the WNF Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for updates as well.

Ranges links:

Website: https://www.rangesmusic.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rangesmusic/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rangesmusic

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rangesmusic/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBJg41ELchEChCEtIRKz4NA

A Thousand Arms: http://www.athousandarms.com/

dunk!festival USA: https://www.dunkfestival.be/usa/#line-up-us

dunk!festival USA Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/984163238356840/

Open Language – Free Post-Rock Compilation from A Thousand Arms

Arctic Drones writer David Zeidler and our own CJ Blessum from the band Ranges have teamed up to release an incredible post-rock compilation through CJ’s company A Thousand Arms called Open Language.

The comp is split into two sides, with Side A featuring the cream of the crop of American post-rock acts, and Side B featuring an array of acts from around the rest of the world. 34 songs for absolutely free. And, even better, the four tracks marked with an asterisk are previously unreleased!

Here’s the line up:

SIDE A: USA
1. Of the Vine – Even If I Never See You In This Life…
2. Wander – Soar
3. Tides of Man – Young and Courageous
4. RANGES – Crown *
5. I/O – Twins
6. Pray for Sound – Conceiver
7. Rhone – Cedar Springs *
8. This Patch of Sky – And So They Watched As The Years Passed Us By
9. Bright Like the Sun – Jupiter *
10. Beware of Safety – Husbands & Hangmen
11. Covet – Charybdis
12. The End Of The Ocean – Star-Crossed
13. A Film In Color – All The Darkness Looks Alive
14. Coastlands – Seafarer and the Squall *
15. set and setting – The Last Night, A Vivid Memory
16. Compass & Knife – Drowned in Desire
17. Signals To Vega – Fear Not the Cycle of Life

SIDE B: Around The World
1. We Lost The Sea – A Gallant Gentleman
2. Winter Dust – There
3. Mutiny on the Bounty – Countach
4. Tom’s Story – Anchors
5. We Deserve This – Illuminate
6. Degree of Arc – Immunity in Collapse
7. Vasa – As Long As It Doesn’t Explode
8. Oh Hiroshima – Mirage
9. cataya – Tal Sperre
10. Dumbsaint – Love Thy Neighbor
11. Bear, The Storyteller – Come Here, Animals
12. Appalaches – Nola
13. Ocean Districts – Discovery
14. thisquietarmy – From Darkness Redux
15. Show Me A Dinosaur – Wojna
16. Fourteen Nights At Sea – Chiltern Justice
17. Lehnen – Grey Like Travel

Click the following link to check out the brilliant compilation: https://athousandarms.bandcamp.com/

And of course, don’t forget to support the bands that you will inevitably fall in love with as a result of this carefully compiled collection of music.

Hopefully this will be the first release of many. Thanks CJ and David for your efforts, and to all the bands who contributed their stellar material to the cause.

Album Review: Ranges – The Gods of The Copybook Headings

I first became introduced to Ranges when C. J. Blessum asked me to review their song “Night & Day” [link to review]. Emails back and forward led to C. J. and I becoming friends, which in turn led me to invite C. J. to become a regular contributor to this site [link to some of his reviews].

Does that mean my reviewing of the new Ranges album is a conflict of interest? Well… yes. Plus, I actually feature on the first track, so I’m extra biased.

But then again, no review is completely objective. So I will write down my thoughts on this album, and you can decide if my opinion is worth trusting.

I recently realised that Ranges are a concept band. Every musical release has a theme (including the signs of the zodiac, teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the 24 hour cycle, and a Paul Harvey radio monologue). Initially most songs were entirely instrumental, with only song and album titles suggesting what each song was about, but following on from the recent standalone single”If I Were The Devil“, Ranges have begun to use samples of spoken word and prose in their music.

This most recent album uses Rudyard Kipling’s 1919 poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings as inspiration, with the first song introducing the poem, and the following ten songs written about each respective stanza of the poem.

Copybooks were used in schoolrooms early last century, to help students practice their handwriting. They were lined pages, blank save for idioms and proverbs neatly written on the headings, as examples of ideal penmanship. This is a foreign concept these days, with most children more adept controlling a computer or tablet than a pencil. I distinctly remember “writing lines” being a punishment at school (like seen in the opening scene of each Simpsons episode). But back in the day, handwriting was valued, and repeating phrases of wisdom was the way in which it was learnt.

One can imagine how these phrases would become ingrained in the mind of the student, written and re-written countless times as they improve their handwriting abilities. Biblical verses, adages, and common Victorian sayings learnt through rote writing. Kipling used these as the basis for his poem – a discussion on how traditionally valued wisdoms were being ignored with detrimental effect to society.

Image: http://www.barnes113.karoo.net/History/copy_books.htm

We are introduced to this poem by the titular opening track, read by a number of individuals (including yours truly. Does my New Zealand accent stand out?) The music is eerie and atmospheric, and the spoken word is slightly altered and decayed, as if lost in time.

This seamlessly transitions into “The Gods of the Market Place”, at first with dominant reverberating guitars and crashing drums, followed by soft piano echoing after a few measures. Closing track “With Terror and Slaughter Return” mirrors the sing, effectively bookending the album, almost making it into a loop like they did with a previous release, “Night & Day”.

The post-rock dynamics of building and transitioning from soft to searing continues through the album. Not to say that it gets tired, but the tracks tend to blend together. Overdriven guitars soar, and then drop back to gentle swells and slight picking. The piano provides light atmospheric pads, and articulate twinkling mantras. Restrained drums grow more bolder washy cymbals fill in the soundscape. It’s what to expect if you are at all familiar with Ranges – soothing one moment, and crushing the next.

Ranges embody the DIY ethic. They write, record, produce and distribute music themselves, being lucky enough to have a recording studio and printing company run by members of the band. They are also very supportive of others in the local music scene and indie music worldwide. I would love to see them play live in their hometown, but alas, I live on the other side of the world. I would also love to pour over a physical copy of their album art and liner notes. Having seen other material put out by their printing company (A Thousand Arms), I can assure you that the attention to detail will be stunning.

One of the idioms the Kipling employees in his poem is “If you don’t work you die.” If this is the case, then Ranges need not fear death. They’ve averaged three releases a year since their conception, all self made, recorded, printed, etc… And not only is their music powerful and vast, but conceptually thought provoking if you chose to engage with it. All is not gold that glitters, but trust me when I say that this album is gold.

Ranges:

Bandcamp link

iTunes album download

www.facebook.com/alpharanges

Twitter and Instagram handle: @rangesmusic

Joseph James

Welcome to the Will Not Fade family CJ Blessum

CJ Blessum has joined the Will Not Fade team as a contributor. We first met over the internet when he asked me to review something for his band, Ranges. [Review here]. We kept in touch afterwards, and now he has accepted my offer to become a contributor. He offers a great perspective, being an accomplished musician with his own recording studio. He also lives in Montana, which means he will have opportunities to see bands that I’d never get to see in New Zealand. Keep your eyes peeled for his first post this weekend.

Here’s CJ’s story:

“I didn’t start digging into music until I was about seventeen years old. Before this, music was just whatever was being played on the local radio stations. Growing up in rural Montana before the internet became what it is today, it was almost impossible to know anything outside of what the radio was playing. It wasn’t until I saw/heard a cousin of mine play Green Day’s Time Of Your Life on an acoustic guitar at a family reunion that I realized I could be the one making the music people listen to. That day changed my life and completely redirected where I was headed. I started finding bands I’d never heard of and would download whatever songs I could find by them on Napster and then add them to mixtapes that I would listen to over and over again. Eventually, I got together with a few friends and started my first band. We sucked really bad. But it was a starting point.

College opened new avenues for me with music as I was able to find friends dedicated to their musical craft enough to start recording EPs and full lengths ourselves, designing and packaging the albums ourselves, and then taking our creations out on small tours around the American northwest. Realizing how much can be done by “doing it yourself” is a very empowering thing. The idea that people were actually consuming our music was phenomenal and it reestablished a belief in myself that I was supposed to be doing this. Though bands would eventually fall apart and disappear I never stopped making music. During this time I took some online recording classes from the Berklee College of Music and eventually became a professionally certified Pro Tools engineer. With this I’ve built my own studio, called The Low Country, and have been recording local bands ever since.

Even after getting married and having kids I’m still making music. Along with a friend and bandmate, I’ve also built a graphic design and screen-printing business called A Thousand Arms that I’m lucky enough to call my job. We work with a bunch of local bands and have found a true passion in helping bands get great looking merchandise to sell at their shows. With all of this I am also a guitarist and lead song writer for a post-rock band called Ranges.”

Album Review: Ranges – Night & Day

Ranges are a post-rock act from Bozeman, Montana who started out as a trio, and have recently expanded to a 5-piece so that they can play live. Together they write themed instrumental music that is often accompanied by visuals of some kind. Some themes of their past projects have been the Montana ranges, the solar system, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s teachings about taking action when you see something wrong. Recently Ranges and some other artists from the region were asked to each contribute to collection that explored the dichotomy of night and day. Ranges’ entry resulted in their latest single, ‘Night & Day’.

I’ve classified this write up as an album review, but in reality it’s a song review. That said, this song is longer than many EPs that I review here anyway. Like the song ‘Dominion’ by Jakob, ‘Night & Day’ is big enough to be a stand alone release without needing the context of an album to sit within.

The song last 24 minutes, representing the 24 hours of the day. Listen closely and you may be able to hear changes that signify different parts of the day, like sunrise or sunset.

The song begins soft, slowly building. After a few minutes things begin to perk up with a piano ostinato, a mantra that slowly ebbs in and out. I interpret this part as birds chirping for the dawn chorus. My favourite part is a stark cut out around the five minute mark with just an electric drum beat and the piano ostinato. Proper drums enter a minute later, solidifying the sound. The song sounds quite uplifting as it increases in intensity.

Around the 7-9 minute mark the piano drops out and the music gets heavier. The tone changes at exactly half way. The soft picking transitions into soaring overdriven guitars and crashing crescendos. The mood becomes cyclical, with tender breaks that launch into a powerful wash. Soaring guitars fly over heavily struck drums. At 18 minutes the mood drops back to a more solemn tone as the day breaks and the sun sets. A guitar bend could just as well be a Coyote howling in the moonlight. The music slowly begins to settle and simplify as it progresses towards the end, ending in eerie swells and light feedback.

A nice touch is that the song was written to loop back on itself continuously, like the cycle of night and day, so if you listen to it on repeat you won’t be able to tell where it starts and finishes.

Mark Levy getting ready to track drums for the song ‘Night & Day’

One reason I like Ranges so much is because they’re more than just a band that makes music. Their work is often part of a bigger project. For ‘Night & Day’, Ranges, along with other artists, were asked to create art inspired by the theme, in any medium they wish. Other past projects include providing music for a dance performance when TED came to town, and providing the soundtrack for the short film Tronkyin. Ranges also put on two feature length audiovisual shows at a Planetarium in support of their album Solar Mansion, which reminds me of local Wellington composer Rhian Sheehan, who also creates soundtracks for shows at Planetariums and observatory domes. Everything that Ranges put out seems ambitious and extended beyond expectations.

Like I said in my Gilmore Trail review, one of the reasons that instrumental music is so intriguing is because the absence of lyrics leave the music open ended so that the listener can interpret the music however they wish. Even though we know that the song is inspired by a 24 hour day, we can still insert our own stories to fit the soundtrack.

Ranges is a band that pushes the conceptual envelope and expands on ideas across mediums, and ‘Night & Day’ is no exception. As well as being a glorious musical track, the sonic interpretation of night and day makes the song all the more interesting. The song is dynamic enough to stay interesting despite it’s length, especially if you try to identify different parts with the song’s inspiration in mind.

Check out the video below to hear ‘Night & Day’ played live. If you like it then make sure to follow the links underneath for more.

ranges.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/alpharanges

Twitter and Instagram handle: @rangesmusic

Joseph James