Ransom Scenery’s “Ear to Ear” has the same dreamy intimate quality of latter-day shoegaze acts like No Joy, Belong, and their ilk. “Ear to Ear” constantly moves closer and closer to the listener from an unknowable distance. Mysterious, beautiful, and full of shadows, these are songs that possess a great level of detail as Ransom Scenery uses a whole canvas to convey its emotions. This means they go beyond shoegaze, tapping into elements of tasteful dubstep experiments like James Blake, even a slight nod to the chamber pop of Blonde Redhead’s most compelling work. Songs glisten even underneath all those layers of sound.
Stream their record on Bandcamp:
https://ransomscenery.bandcamp.com/album/ear-to-ear
The songs are playful incorporating a great deal of influences beyond the usual. Within “Just Tour” Ransom Scenery successful bring together sounds that recall an evil menacing alter ego of the Beach Boys, bled of their happiness leaving only their aching sadness, hyperactive electronic work best that would not be out of place on Warp Records, along with a detour into bossa nova flavored textures. Decadence reveals itself elsewhere on the album like on the luxurious “All My”. For this piece, by far the longest on the album, begins with indecipherable vocals that create the initial tension. The passage of time allows the lyrics to gain greater clarity. Halfway through the piece Ransom Scenery creates a beautiful reconfiguration of Stereolab’s lush pop arrangements as filtered through a shoegaze filter: in short it is downright perfect. Bringing things to a delightfully hazy conclusion is the busy “Pop Scripture”.
Watch the music video for “Slowly Spinning”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eQVLcdRfzOo
“Ear to Ear” shows how incredibly smart pop music can be and how the shoegaze revival appears to be thankfully well under way.
Find them on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ransom-Scenery/1486946638229447?ref=hl
Posted by Beach Sloth
