RANGERS – “DEERFIELD VILLAGE” from OESB // FUTURE SOUND on Vimeo.

If The Skaters could do it with terrestrial surfing, and Ducktails could do it with a Disney cartoon, then somebody was bound to do it with a baseball team. From Texas. I do not know if San Francisco sound collagist Joe Knight actually took cues from the Dallas-Ft. Worth home team for the title of his solo project (“Rangers“), but I do know that he hails from Texas–and that his music reflects a parallel fixation with the tape reel as a cutting board for the psychic trappings of middle class American youth. Depending on how we listen through the fuzz, the chorus of “Deerfield Village,” a pop song off his forthcoming Suburban Tours l.p. on Olde English Spelling Bee / Future Sound, is either “I don’t want to go out” or “I don’t want to grow up.”

It is hard to tell which words are true–or truer–for the speaker, but fun to imagine what he is doing as he is singing them. I like to imagine him blowing off a party and cruising on a snappy baseline through a remembered gated community after sundown, weaving Mario-Cart-style past lawn gnomes, fire hydrants, and smiling Golden Retrievers. But this video, which features footage from a 1970s documentary about the about the Hulme Crescents housing project in Manchester (also the site of this famous photo of Joy Division) works just as well. What is more, it shows that “Deerfield Village” is actually just as cold and sinister (and ’70’s in pacing) as it is warm and neon and ’80s in feel, which is probably one of the reasons why it grips us so much. We know that we’re remembering something, but not sure what; likewise, we’re not sure whether we should recoil in horror or get up and ask that special someone for a slow dance. When you put the two together, you’ve got something terrifyingly psychedelic.

Words: Emilie Friedlander

“Deerfield Village” is from the upcoming l.p. Suburban Tours, which will be out later this year on Olde English Spelling Bee / Future Sound. Rangers also has several limited cassette releases available on Not Not Fun and As Above So Below & has a track included on Volume 2 of the Friendship Bracelet Club series.

Tags: Deerfield Village, Future Sound, Joe Knight, Olde English Spelling Bee, Rangers, Suburban Tours

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