In one of the few recorded interviews with the elusive Burial, the producer admitted to spending much of his time walking city streets alone, sometimes in pursuit of an obvious objective, other times because he had nothing else to do. “Being on your own listening to headphones is not a million miles away from being in a club surrounded by people,” he said. “Sometimes you get that feeling like a ghost touched your heart, like someone walks with you.”

It’s a disarmingly earnest sentiment, one that has stuck with Strange Ranger’s Isaac Eiger since he first read it years ago, when the band was just getting started playing house show circuits in and around the mountain West. We are taught to believe that life is made up of a series of arrivals, but it is in the liminal spaces where we most often experience the sublime. Strange Ranger’s transcendent fourth album, Pure Music, was made to be heard in private moments between where you’ve been and where you’re going. Though that Burial quote resonates, these songs have a pulse so strong they’re practically breathing; not touching your heart, but gripping it.

Recorded at a cabin in upstate New York as a blizzard raged outside, Pure Music elucidates the promise of No Light in Heaven, a mixtape that hinted the band was cocooned in a state of...  more

released July 21, 2023

Isaac Eiger: vocals, guitar, electronics
Fred Nixon: vocals, bass, electronics
Fiona Woodman: vocals, electronics
Nathan Tucker: drums, saxophone, electronics

Music by Strange Ranger, lyrics by Isaac Eiger except for track 3, by Isaac Eiger and Fiona Woodman; and tracks 5 and 8, by Fred Nixon

Additional Musicians:
Tyler Bussey: guitar, banjo
Ellie Eiger: additional vocals on track 2
Blake Ortiz-Goldberg: additional vocals on track 4, additional production of tracks 2 & 4

Produced and engineered by Strange Ranger at our apartments in NYC and Philadelphia as well as Tim’s old place in Phoenicia, NY; the Chicken Shack in Stanfordville, NY; and Livingrooms in Brooklyn, NY

Drum kit on tracks 1, 6, 7, 8, and 9 engineered by Kyle Pulley at Headroom Studios in Philadelphia, PA

Mixed by Al Carlson

Mastered By Joe LaPorta