State Park Ranger – Queen City Sounds and Art

StateParkRanger1_crop — State Park Ranger, photo courtesy the artists

The pacing of State Park Ranger’s “The Will (featuring Cowbaby)” feels like an evolving sketch with details added as the picture and melody develop organically. It sounds almost as though we’re hearing the song being written as it goes, guided by an intuitive process and deep listening between the artists. It’s an impressionistic compositional style that subverts most current trends of songwriting in the realm of folk or indie alternative. There is no verse chorus interchange, rather the song’s progress travels in one direction exploring the Nietzschean concept of “the will” in the words but fleshing it out musically in an abstract form of indie pop like an even more subdued and introspective Neutral Milk Hotel. We hear familiar sounds but employed and set out in a way that dares not to follow the same musical paths we’ve been conditioned to hearing when that palette of sounds is utilized. That alone makes this song a fascinating listen as it does end and concludes but doesn’t resolve in a conventional sense making it similar in a way to some of Nietzsche’s enigmatic epigrams. Listen to the song on Spotify and follow State Park Rangers at the links provided.