Rangda

Rangda

The Heretic's Bargain

Drag City

***The third album from the trio SIR RICHARD BISHOP, BEN CHASNY and CHRIS CORSANO. After years of recording and touring together, Bishop and Chasny’s guitar playing has mutated via some kind of lateral gene transfer of their musical DNA, and the rhythms ridden by Rangda feel mutually funded (though Corsano’s beat-making is as fine-lined and rawly inspired as ever). The Heretic’s Bargain takes territories that Rangda explored on their first two albums—the abraded fury and free forms off False Flag and the serpentine Rang-dang-doodle songatechture from Formerly Extinct. Further informing Rangda’s unity are the recording-mixing-mastering team of JASON MEAGHER and PATRICK KLEM ason Meagher,

Rangda

Formerly Extinct

Drag City

***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. For the second flight of the shadowy witch-god brothers, RANGDA have changed their status from False Flag to Formerly Extinct! Upon examination, there’s reason beyond their rhyme-free wanderings. Since the last album, see, Rangda have been all around this world as the wise men and the fools alike in lands both high and low. They’ve seen the young and invest-less kneel amp-side, waiting for musical succor, then in the next town over they’ve felt the cold chill of being left for dead and seen their music dubbed “so wrong it must be Rangda” strictly for some local pen-lifter’s personal chuckles. How we can even claim that Formerly Extinct displays a greater fluidity than the well-oiled zero-to-60Khz hairpins of False Flag is a matter of debate around DC corporate HQ. It seems to depend on how you define the semi-metallic element of sound sometimes called “sharp.” False Flag featured a tune called “Serrated Edges,” which made sense in the knife-flying arc of that album. Sharp is a claw-like quality in generous supply on Formerly Extinct as well—a graphic picture in sharp focus, perhaps with cleaner edges yet unmistakably gruesome subjects. While False Flag found these slingers in a whirlwinded shred-fest, each trying to out do each other with what they brought to the Rangda lair (er, recording studio), Formerly Extinct blossoms like the home-grown hybrid of a three-headed beast well-practiced in its body. A lean ’n’ amazingly mean, greased-up, child-eating machine. Born to...

Rangda

False Flag

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! RANGDA’s been building up behind the scenes for some time now. As label mates and members of an exclusive mutual admiration society, SIR RICHARD BISHOP and BEN CHASNY thirsted for a conflagration involving two electric guitars plus a drummer. Bringing in CHRIS CORSANO they recorded a studio session with Seattle sound guru SCOTT COLBURN. Beforehand, a mere ninety minutes was allotted for the three to further discuss ideas and play together for the very first time. What would happen? What do you think happened, stupid? Of course they planted a garden of lyricism seeded with several compositions and several improvisations! Placed end-to-end, the six pieces of the Rangda saga (part the first) rock from splintering onslaught to soulful meditation and back again with manifest precision — this was a planned attack. Unceasing battery slides suddenly into ritual form with elemental ease. The fretworks of Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny split time while Corsano shapes the air around them. Each players moves as part of the whole of Rangda, and whether surging, cycling, or in pastoral, they are never less than explosive. This initial foray flies under the banner of False Flag. No Export to Europe. Received an 8.2 rating from Pitchfork.